Wednesday, March 29, 2017

29-Mar-17: At entrance to Jerusalem's Old City, another foiled stabbing attack

At Jerusalem's heavily secured Damascus Gate (Sha'ar Shechem in Hebrew), it's reported this afternoon (Wednesday) that a female assailant “appears to have attempted to stab police officers” in an apparent terror attack. Officers of the Border Guard at the scene shot her according to Times of Israel and she died of her injuries. A police statement as of about 4:00 pm (see Twitter) suggests the Old City is closed off and police and emergency units are at the scene.

All the elements of what appears to be a successfully foiled attack are familiar: a woman with a knife; Damascus Gate and the Old City area; Israeli police as the targets. But an Arab news source is less sure:
Witness told Ma'an that the Nimr was walking with her daughter in the entrance to Damascus Gate, and that an altercation occurred once they came close to Israeli police officers. [Ma'an News Agency, March 29, 2017]
UPDATE 6:00 am on March 30, 2017: It's reported that the attacker is Siham Nimr, 49, from Shuafat, East Jerusalem. Ynet says
She is the mother of Mustafa Nimr, who was accidentally killed by policemen in September 2016 after his cousin rammed through an east Jerusalem checkpoint while driving under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The officers mistook the two for terrorists, shooting the vehicle and critically wounding Mustafa, who was sitting in the passenger seat... A source in the Shuafat refugee camp told Ynet that since her son was killed, Siham was heavily depressed and couldn’t recover. The source estimated that she tried to stab the officers probably as revenge for her son's death.
Revenge, as a reflection of the honor/shame value system that seems to characterize Palestinian Arab society, plays an oversize role in the motivations claimed for Arab-on-Israeli terror.

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