Incitement-fueled violence against Israelis continued Friday as three teenagers were shot in two separate attacks in Hebron. The first attack took place outside the Tomb of the Patriarchs, where a 16-year-old was seriously hurt by gunfire to the upper body and taken to a hospital in Jerusalem, Channel 2 reported. An 18-year-old was reported to have sustained light injuries. In the second shooting less than two hours later, a 19-year-old was reported to have been seriously wounded in the upper body and evacuated to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem for treatment.
Earlier in the day, an Israeli man was stabbed and badly wounded outside a supermarket in the Sha’ar Binyamin industrial park north of Jerusalem. The attack came minutes after a Palestinian woman in her 70’s attempted to run down a group of soldiers near Hebron. No soldiers were injured, but the woman was shot and is being treated in Shaarei Tzedek hospital. A border policeman was critically injured earlier this week by a car that ran him down near the scene of today’s car-ramming attack.
Various Israeli security experts and Palestinian activists have attributed the recent attacks to incitement coming from all levels of Palestinian society, including government officials. On Monday, the United States House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution condemning incitement by the Palestinian Authority. At the time, the measure’s co-sponsor Ted Deutch (D – Fla.) said, “It is well past time for President Abbas to stand up and condemn all acts of violence, rather than encouraging violence by glorifying terrorists and teaching children to view Israelis as animals.”
Recent reports by the Middle East Media Research Institute and The New York Times have also shed light on the violent incitement sweeping Palestinian social media, which includes hashtags such as “Poison the Knife before You Stab” and “Slaughtering the Jews,” as well as graphic images and how-to guides encouraging more terror attacks. “One crude cartoon making the rounds on Facebook, including on the official Palestinian TV page before it disappeared late Tuesday, depicts an Israeli soldier as an ape, accompanied by a pig, over a bloodied youth,” The Times wrote. “Another has a close-up of a menacing blade, and is captioned: “This is not difficult. To the closest kitchen, and go in the name of God.”
Another report published in the Times this past October highlighted some of the popular “nationalistic” songs stoking the violence, including musical hits such as “Stab, stab” and “Run Over, Run Over the Settler.”
Earlier this week, the IDF shut down the al-Hurriya radio station located in Hebron, charging “that the station had broadcast vicious incitement against Israel, encouraged stabbing attacks, and supported violent resistance.”
PA President Mahmoud Abbas was reported saying last week that Israel has been an occupying power since its creation. In September, he called on Palestinians “not to allow” the “filthy feet” of Jews to defile the holy places in Jerusalem. In October, he said that Israel had “executed” a teen terrorist while the terrorist was recovering in an Israeli hospital.
According to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Magen David Adom medical emergency service reports that 11 Israelis have been killed and 153 wounded, 18 seriously, between October 1 – November 2. An additional 72 individuals were treated for shock. As of Wednesday, the IDF recorded 58 stabbings, five shootings, and seven car ramming attacks.
[Photo: JD Lasica / flickr ]