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Timeline of terror in Israel

On Oct. 13, a terrorist drove a car into a bus top in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Geula, leaving one dead and others wounded.TEL AVIV — The past week has seen a wave of Palestinian attacks on Israelis and Israeli military operations, prompting fears of a third intifada. Here’s a timeline of the lead-up to the unrest and the attacks themselves.

September

Sept. 9: Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon outlaws the Mourabitat, an Islamist protest group that Israel says is violent, from the Temple Mount. Muslims revere the site as the Noble Sanctuary.

Sept. 13: Israeli security forces raid the mount in the morning, ahead of Rosh Hashanah, and discover stockpiles of firebombs, pipe bombs and rocks that they fear will be used against Jewish worshippers.

Palestinian protesters throw rocks at Alexander Levlovich, a 64-year-old Jewish-Israeli, as he drives home from Rosh Hashanah dinner. Levlovich loses control of the car and crashes. He dies the next morning.

Sept. 14: Israeli police clash with Palestinian protesters on the Temple Mount. Two Israelis are injured. The US State Department calls on all sides to “refrain from provocative actions and rhetoric.”

Sept. 15: On the third straight day of clashes on the mount, 26 Palestinians and five Israeli policemen are injured.

Sept. 18: In clashes in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, 21 Palestinians and three Israeli police officers are injured. Also, Israel bars Muslim men under 40 from the mount and increases police presence in the Old City of Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount. Clashes temporarily die down.

Sept. 19: Rockets from the Gaza Strip land in Israel, causing no injuries. Israel retaliates with airstrikes on Gaza.

Sept. 22: If clashes continue, PA President Mahmoud Abbas says in a speech, it could lead to an “intifada we don’t want.”

Sept. 24: Israel increases the penalty for stone throwing, upping fines and prison sentences. Israel also relaxes the open-fire orders for police officers combating stone throwers.

Sept. 28: Riots start anew on the Temple Mount, then die down, as Israeli security forces again uncover stockpiles of weapons.

Sept. 30: Speaking to the UN General Assembly, Abbas accuses Israel of using “brutal force to impose its plans to undermine the Islamic and Christian sanctities in Jerusalem.” He also says Israel has broken Israeli-Palestinian agreements and says the PA will not be bound by them.

October

Oct. 1: Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addresses the UN. In addition to a lengthy rebuke of the world’s embrace of Iran, Netanyahu reiterates his assertion that Israel seeks to maintain the status quo on the mount. He also repeats his call to restart negotiations with the Palestinians without preconditions.

At night, as they drive home through the West Bank, a Jewish-Israeli couple, Rabbi Eitam and Naama Henkin, are ambushed by terrorists and shot dead in front of their four children.

Oct. 3: A terrorist kills two rabbis in the Old City of Jerusalem. Aharon Bennett, a 22-year-old Israeli soldier  also known as Aharon Benita, is on the way to the Western Wall when he, his wife and their two sons are attacked. He is off duty and out of uniform. His wife, Adele, 21, is seriously wounded and undergoes emergency surgery.

The second victim, Nehemia Lavi, 41, is stabbed and killed when he tries to fend off the attacker with a gun. The assailant is shot by police.

Oct. 4: Moshe Malka, 15, is stabbed near the Old City. The alleged assailant, Fadi Alloun, is shot by police as he flees the scene. But the Palestinians claim that Alloun is innocent and was shot by police at the urging of an extremist Jewish mob.

Oct. 5: Thousands demonstrate in front of Netanyahu’s residence demanding harsher security measures.

Netanyahu says: “We are allowing our forces to take strong action against those who throw rocks and firebombs. This is necessary in order to safeguard the security of Israeli citizens on the roads and everywhere. We are not prepared to give immunity to any rioter, inciter or terrorist anywhere; therefore, there are no restrictions on the action of our security forces.”

In military raids in the West Bank, Israel kills two Palestinians, including a 13-year-old, within 24 hours. Israel says the 13-year-old was shot in error.

Oct. 6: The Israel Defense Forces arrests the five-man Hamas cell allegedly responsible for the Henkin attack.

Oct. 7: Jewish-Israelis are targeted in four separate attacks. A soldier is stabbed in the southern city of Kiryat Gat, a man is stabbed in the Old City of Jerusalem, a woman is attacked with stones as she drives to the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, and a man is stabbed in the central city of Petach Tikvah.

Oct. 8: Three more stabbing attacks take place: a man in Jerusalem, a woman in Hebron and five people in central Tel Aviv. The Tel Aviv attack, which lightly injured the victims, is with a screwdriver.

Netanyahu bars all Knesset members from the Temple Mount, hoping to curb escalations.

Meanwhile, in Netanya a young Arab-Israeli was beaten by several Jews who shouted “death to Arabs.”

Oct. 9: Six people were wounded in an accident caused by Palestinians who hurled stones at their car.

Oriya Dagan, the wife of Yossi Dagan, head of the Regional Municipality of Samaria, and their three children sustained minor injuries in the accident in the West Bank while they were driving to Jerusalem, Channel 2 reported.

The family and two other passengers were driving to Jerusalem to spend Shabbat with Yossi Dagan, who is camped out in front of Netanyahu’s residence in protest of what Dagan and other settler leaders perceive as the government’s weak response to what Netanyahu on Oct. 7 said was a “wave of terror” by Palestinians.

Also on Oct. 9, six Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed by Israeli security during two riots near Israel’s border with Gaza and in one stabbing near Hebron.

Also, a Palestinian woman was shot at the central bus station in the northern city of Afula, reportedly after trying to stab an Israeli soldier.

In another attack by Jewish radicals on Palestinians and Arabs, four Arabs were stabbed in Dimona by a 17-year-old Jewish male and suffered minor to moderate wounds.

Oct. 11: Four Israelis were injured, including one critically, in a stabbing attack at a kibbutz in northern Israel.

A 19-year-old woman was reported to have damage to multiple organs as a result of the attack on Sunday, Oct. 11, at Gan Shmuel, near Hadera. Two of the victims were moderately wounded, and a 45-year-old man was lightly injured.

The suspected assailant was caught by police, who identified him as a 20-year-old Arab-Israeli from the northern Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, located 12 miles from the scene of the attack.


Umm al-Fahm is where an annual demonstration “Al Aqsa in danger” takes place around Rosh Hashanah and is, according to some experts, a factor in why the autumn and early winter months seem to be periods of escalated violence.

Dr. Shaul Bartal from the Middle East Dept. at Bar Ilan University says that during the event, Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Islamic Movement of Israel’s northern branch, delivers the main speeches in which he praises “resistance” to such moves and encourages terrorist attacks.

“It’s reported in all sorts of [Palestinian] media outlets and has huge popularity,” Bartal told Tazpit News Agency.

Also on Oct. 11, two Israelis were injured in rock-throwing attacks in the West Bank.

An Israeli policeman was injured when a 31-year-old Palestinian woman from Jericho detonated explosives in her car at a checkpoint near the city of Maale Adumim. The bomber was seriously injured and taken to a Jerusalem hospital.

She reportedly shouted “G-d is great” in Arabic before detonating the explosives, and tried to jump out of the car right before the explosion, according to police. The car carried a canister of gas, police said, which may indicate that she had intended to carry out a larger attack.

The woman, whose car had Israeli license plates, was pulled over for driving a “suspicious vehicle” in a carpool lane, according to police.

The Palestinian Maan news agency reported that the car had an “electrical problem” that ignited a small fire in the car.

The attack followed several violent episodes on Oct. 10, including two stabbing attacks in Jerusalem that injured at least three Israeli civilians and a police officer; several rock-throwing attacks that injured Israeli civilians and soldiers; the killing of at least seven Palestinian rioters trying to infiltrate Israel at the Gaza security fence.

Also on Oct. 11, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead during clashes with Israeli troops in the West Bank, Maan reported.

The clashes took place near Ramallah. Maan cited local medics in its report on the boy.

Also in the West Bank, Israeli forces shot and injured at least 50 Palestinians, including a Maan cameraman, during clashes at a checkpoint near Nablus, according to Maan.

Protests also took place in the West Bank city of Tulkarem, near Hebron, and in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Dis.

In Jersualem, a group of Jewish girls allegedly attacked an Arab man  with pepper spray.

Three suspects were detained for questioning after the incident downtown, Jerusalem Police reported.

Also Sunday, five Israeli Jews were ordered held by the Rishon LeZion Magistrate’s Court after being arrested on suspicion of beating an Arab man on Oct. 8 in Netanya, in central Israel, the Times of Israel reported.

An indictment also was filed against a Jewish man, 23, for throwing rocks at Arab drivers in Jerusalem over the past few days.

Also Sunday, a Jewish-Israeli man was indicted in Jerusalem District Court for attacking two Arab-Israeli workers near David’s Tomb in a racially motivated attack, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Oct. 12: A 13-year-old Israeli boy riding his bike was critically injured in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem allegedly by 13- and 15-year-old Palestinian assailants.

The teen and a second victim, in his early to mid-20s, are in serious condition following the attack in the northern Jerusalem community of Pisgat Zeev, Israel Police reported.

The younger suspected attacker was shot by Israel Police and died, while the other suspect was arrested. They are brothers from eastern Jerusalem, according to Palestinian reports.

The attack came less than an hour after an Israeli Border Police officer was injured in a stabbing attack outside the National Police Headquarters, also in northern Jerusalem, near the border between western and eastern Jerusalem.

The assailant, a female identified by Israel’s Channel 2 as a resident of eastern Jerusalem, was shot in the stomach by the injured officer and seriously wounded. Police arrested an alleged accomplice at the scene, Channel 2 reported.

It is the same place that a yeshiva student was stabbed in the neck by a Palestinian assailant on Oct. 8.

The attacks came hours after Israel Police officers shot and killed an Arab man in the Old City of Jerusalem after he attempted to stab a policeman.

Oct. 13: Three people were killed in two simultaneous attacks in the East Talpiot neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem and in the Geula neighborhood in the central part of the city.

In the wake of the attacks, roads into eastern Jerusalem were closed.

Two men, identified by police as Palestinians from the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem, attacked passengers on an Egged bus in East Talpiot, killing a 78-year-old man, Times of Israel reported. One assailant carried a gun and the other a knife. A second man, 45, later died at Shaare Zedek hospital.

At least 10 other people injured by gunshots and stabbing wounds were treated at area hospitals. One of the attackers was killed and the other wounded during the attack. According to reports, the assailants first attempted to commandeer the bus before attacking passengers.

In the haredi Orthodox Geula neighborhood, police said an attacker drove a car into a bus stop, killing one and seriously injuring another, before exiting the car and stabbing pedestrians. A security guard shot and seriously wounded the attacker, who was identified as a resident of eastern Jerusalem with Israeli citizenship.

An employee of the Bezeq phone company, the assailant used a company car in the attack, Ynet reported.

Two attacks on Tuesday morning took place in the central Israeli city of Raanana, located about 10 miles from Tel Aviv and home to many immigrants from English-speaking countries.

An eastern Jerusalem resident employed by a local rehabilitation center stabbed pedestrians at a bus stop on Ahuza Street, the city’s main thoroughfare. He was subdued by civilians, according to police.

Another resident of eastern Jerusalem, reported to be a municipal worker, was captured and subdued by passers-by after stabbing pedestrians near Raanana City Hall, police said.

Early Tuesday afternoon, police said a Jewish-Israeli stabbed a fellow Jewish-Israeli near Haifa after mistaking him for a Palestinian. The attack took place near an IKEA store in Kiryat Ata, located in northern Israel.

Also Tuesday, hundreds of Gaza Palestinians rioted close to the Erez Crossing near the security fence with Israel, throwing rocks and firebombs, according to police. The border with Gaza was closed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called an emergency meeting of the Security Cabinet late Tuesday morning to assess the security situation.

Oct. 14: At press time, on Oct. 14, the IJN received word of a stabbing near Jerusalem’s Central Bus Station. Tazpit News Agency reported that a 23-year-old resident from the Arab neighborhood of Ras al-Amud in eastern Jerusalem, stabbed a 72-year-old woman.

The victim immediately attempted to get onto a city bus to escape. After the victim successfully got onto the bus, the driver locked the doors preventing the terrorist from entering the bus.

A Jerusalem Riot Police officer close to the scene, ran towards the attacher who still had the knife in his hand, and shot the terrorist, neutralizing him.

The victim was transported to Shaare Zedek Medical Center, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Shortly after the attack, young Israelis gathered at the scene to sing and dance together, in a display of courage and spirit in the face of the current wave of terrorist attacks that has stricken Jerusalem and the rest of Israel.




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