TEL AVIV First it was clashes on the Temple Mount. Then a mother and father Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin were shot before the eyes of their four children, Oct. 1. Then two men were killed in a stabbing attack in Jerusalems Old City, Oct. 3.
Then a 15-year-old was stabbed in the Old City, Oct. 4.
At press time, on Oct. 7, the IJN received word of a 36-year-old male stabbed in the Old City; at least three people stabbed in Petach Tikva; a car stoned at a Har Homa checkpoint in Jerusalem; a report of an attempted lynching, also at Har Homa; and an attack by a vehicle in Maale Adumim left two wounded.
Some Israelis fear the wave of violence will only rise.
THE 15-year-old Israeli teenager stabbed by a Palestinian man outside Jerusalems Old City occured several hours after two Israeli men were killed in a similar attack nearby.
The 15-year-old victim was in moderate condition after being treated on the scene early Sunday morning, Oct. 4, by paramedics. He was taken to the hospital with wounds to his chest and back.
The assailant reportedly fled the scene. A video posted online appeared to show him hundreds of feet away, on the tracks of Jerusalems light rail, where he was shot and killed by police officers.
Hamas media named the suspected stabber as Fadi Aloon, a resident of the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya. A post before the attack on what appeared to be Aloons Facebook page pledged martyrdom and asked G-ds forgiveness for sins.
The stabbing attack that killed the two Israeli men took place on Saturday night, Oct. 3, also in the Old City. An Israeli woman, the wife of one of the men who was killed, and her two-year-old daughter were injured.
The Palestinian assailant, 19, from the al-Bireh village near Ramallah in the West Bank, reportedly took a gun from one of the stabbed men and began shooting at Israeli security forces, who were alerted to the attack by the injured woman.
The assailant was shot and killed by Israeli security forces.
The Islamic Jihad terrorist organization claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that the attacker identified as Muhannad Shafeq Halabi, a law student at Al-Quds University was a member of its movement.
Halabi posted a message on his Facebook page on Oct. 2 saying that the third intifada has begun.
The Fatah movement, which is led by PA President Mahmoud Abbas, tweeted an image of the message on Saturday, after the attack.
Hamas applauded what it called the heroic operation in a statement, saying: We support and welcome any resistance activity that harms Israeli soldiers and settlers. Our people in the West Bank are ready to die, to sacrifice themselves to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
One of the dead men, identified as Aharon Benita, 22, was the husband of the injured woman and child, who were evacuated to Jerusalem hospitals where they each underwent surgery.
The second victim was Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, 41, a rabbi at the Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva in the Old City and a father of seven. The men were walking to the Western Wall through the Lions Gate when they were attacked.
The attack followed two days after an Israeli couple, Rabbi and Mrs. Eitam Henkin, was shot dead by Palestinian assailants while driving in a car in the West Bank with their four young children, who survived the attack.
The Israel Police said they would continue to operate additional security patrols throughout Jerusalem, with an emphasis on the Old City, where there has been an increase in violence centered on the Temple Mount in recent weeks.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog of the Zionist Union blamed the attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Netanyahu lost control over the security of Israeli citizens and Jerusalem, Herzog said in a statement posted on Facebook.
His government is showing weakness and a total failure in security and the national mission of protecting Jerusalems security.
Security does not come from speeches, he added, alluding to Netanyahus Oct. 1 speech before the UN General Assembly.
THE PA condemned Israel for the killing of two Palestinian attackers in Jerusalem and called on the UN to intervene to protect its citizens.
In a statement published Sunday, Oct, 4, on the website of the Wafa Palestinian news and information agency, the PA called on the international community to intervene following the killing of two young men in occupied Jerusalem and the series of incursions into cities and villages in the West Bank.
The statement by PA government spokesman Ihab Bseiso did not say that the two Palestinian men were killed by Israeli security services in the wake of their murderous attacks on Jewish Israelis.
The only solution is the end of the Israeli occupation of our occupied Palestinian land and the establishment of our independent state on the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, Bseiso said in his statement, according to Wafa.
On Sunday, the Israel Police announced that Palestinians would be banned from the Old City for two days in the wake of the stabbing attacks.
