Jerusalem Adding Police Amid Fears of Violence
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Version 0 of 1. JERUSALEM — A young Ecuadorean woman critically injured when a Palestinian driver plowed into a group of pedestrians at a light-rail station here last week died on Sunday, hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel announced a major increase in Jerusalem’s police force to quell violence. The woman, Karen Yemima Mosquera, 22, was among eight people injured Wednesday in what the Israel Police said it is treating as a purposeful attack. A 3-month-old Israeli baby with American citizenship, Chaya Zissel Braun, was killed. There have been frequent clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem — particularly in the Silwan neighborhood, where the driver lived, and another area of frequent tension, Issawiya — in the four days since the deadly collision. These episodes followed three months of escalated protests, violence and arrests in what many analysts have described as the stirrings of a third intifada, or Palestinian uprising. “We will not allow the reality forming in the capital city to be that of rock-throwing, hurling of Molotov cocktails and disorder,” Mr. Netanyahu declared at the start of a cabinet meeting Sunday. “There are radical Islamist elements that are trying to ignite Israel’s capital city, and we will use all of the necessary strength with determination and responsibility in order to make sure they do not succeed.” The prime minister announced the addition of 1,000 police officers, including members of the border patrol and special units, in Jerusalem, where about 500,000 Jews and 300,000 Arabs live in mostly segregated neighborhoods. During the summer, a police spokesman said, 3,000 officers patrolled the city’s streets, up from a normal 1,300. Palestinian leaders say that recent Jewish settlement activity in Silwan and an influx of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount — known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and home to Al Aksa mosque — have intensified long-simmering outrage in East Jerusalem. The Israeli news site Ynet reported Sunday that President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority had written to the Obama administration warning that the “Israeli escalation in East Jerusalem” could cause an uncontrollable eruption of violence. Jordan’s ambassador to Israel echoed the criticism on Sunday at an event for the 20th anniversary of Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel. “All such acts are incompatible with international law and international humanitarian law and if allowed to continue will ultimately imperil the treaty,” said the ambassador, Walid Obeidat, according to Reuters. The driver in Wednesday’s collision, 21-year-old Abd al-Rahman al-Shaloudy — whom the police fatally shot as he tried to flee on foot — was buried just before midnight Sunday under tight Israeli restrictions, including a 70-person attendance limit. Several hundred mourners had gathered at the Lion’s Gate to Jerusalem’s Old City to await the body. Israeli security forces closed off the cemetery just outside the gate and searched with flashlights for people who might have hidden inside. The crowd chanted “God is great” as the body arrived and then, as it was being washed, shouted slogans calling for confrontations. But some people warned others not to throw stones at the police, and Mr. Shaloudy’s family halted an effort to defy the authorities and take the body to Al Aksa for prayer. The family has maintained that the crash was an accident. Ms. Mosquera moved to Israel nearly two years ago and had converted to Judaism privately — not through the state rabbinical authorities — six months ago, according to Sarah Yelta, a teacher at Machon Roni, the Old City yeshiva for girls where Ms. Mosquera had been studying. She was planning to stay. “She wanted to be Jewish,” Ms. Yelta said. “It’s so sad, because just today she had an appointment with the Interior Ministry to get her immigration settled.” |