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Two Israelis Die in Separate Stabbings by Palestinians
Palestinians Are Suspected as 2 Israelis Die in Knife Attacks
(about 5 hours later)
JERUSALEM — An Israeli woman and an Israeli soldier were killed on Monday in separate stabbing attacks, the latest in a series that signal how Israeli-Palestinian relations have deteriorated since the war in Gaza over the summer. Both attacks were carried out by Palestinian men, one in the occupied West Bank and the other in the bustling commercial center of Tel Aviv.
JERUSALEM — An Israeli soldier and an Israeli woman were killed on Monday in separate stabbing attacks that the authorities attributed to Palestinian men, rattling Israelis and intensifying the political pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said the woman, 26, was killed near the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut, about 14 miles southwest of Jerusalem. He said a man got out of a vehicle in a busy traffic circle there during the afternoon rush hour and knifed the woman and two other Jews.
The attacks took place near a crowded Tel Aviv train station around noon and a busy traffic circle in the occupied West Bank during the afternoon rush. They followed weeks of violence in Jerusalem that spiraled out to Arab towns in northern Israel, where on Friday night the police killed a Palestinian citizen of Israel wielding a knife. The country’s internal security minister ordered a crackdown to arrest members of Palestinian militant groups, while Mr. Netanyahu, after a late-night consultation with his security team, said he would increase forces on the ground and take other steps, including knocking down suspects’ homes.
A security guard from the settlement shot the suspected assailant, who was taken to a hospital, where he was in critical condition. Relatives said the suspect was a member of Islamic Jihad and had served time in an Israeli prison.
Speaking to members of his Likud Party on Monday afternoon, after the Tel Aviv attack, the prime minister blamed “the incitement led by the Palestinian Authority,” and said that Israeli-Arab citizens “who demonstrate against Israel and in favor of a Palestinian state” can “move to the Palestinian Authority or Gaza.”
The Tel Aviv attack took place around midday near a crowded train station, where the soldier — Sgt. Almog Shiloni, 20 — was stabbed several times; the sergeant died of his wounds at a hospital Monday night. The police arrested an 18-year-old man from a refugee camp outside the West Bank city of Nablus, whose family said he was in Tel Aviv illegally in search of work.
“The terrorism against us knows no borders,” he said. “It is aimed at all parts of the country for a simple reason. The terrorists and those who incite to it want to get rid of us wherever we are.”
Speaking after that attack but before the attack near Alon Shvut, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel declared, “We won’t tolerate violence.”
Critics of Mr. Netanyahu said the attacks were an indictment of his leadership, with those on the left blaming the lack of a peace process with the Palestinians, and those on the right saying his security policy was too lenient.
“Those inciting to terrorism don’t want us to be anywhere — not Jerusalem, not Tel Aviv — I promise they won’t succeed,” Mr. Netanyahu told a meeting of his Likud Party. “We will fight incitement” by the Palestinian Authority and by radical Islamists, he said, “and fight those calling to destroy us.”
Within moments of the first stabbing, police officers arrested an 18-year-old man from a refugee camp on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus, whose family said he was in Tel Aviv illegally looking for work. The victim in that attack, Sgt. Almog Shilony, died Monday evening.
The stabbings shook Israelis’ sense of security and heightened concern about a new Palestinian intifada, or uprising, after weeks of mounting violence and tension in Jerusalem that had spiraled out to the West Bank and to Arab towns in northern Israel. The first was just off a busy highway in Tel Aviv, Israel’s business and cultural heart. The second was near where three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped in June and later killed, an episode that helped precipitate the bloody battle this summer between Israel and Hamas, the militant Islamist movement that dominates the Gaza Strip.
The suspected assailant in the second attack, a member of Islamic Jihad who had spent five years in an Israeli prison, was shot by a security guard from a nearby Jewish settlement, and was in critical condition at a Jerusalem hospital late Monday.
“We are talking about the entrance to Alon Shvut, along the road our children walk to school on,” David Pearl, leader of the settlements south of Jerusalem known as Gush Etzion, said on Army Radio. “This is the continuation of a weak stand in front of terrorism.”
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said the second suspect had tried to ram his car into people waiting at a bus station, echoing two recent deadly attacks at Jerusalem light-rail stations. When that did not work, Mr. Rosenfeld said, he emerged with a knife and stabbed three Jews, including the woman who died — Dalia Lemkus, 26, a resident of Tekoa, a nearby Jewish settlement.
Naftali Bennett, Israel’s economy minister and the leader of the ultranationalist Jewish Home party, blamed the violence on President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, whom he called “a terrorist in a suit.”
The United States ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, condemned the attacks, saying in a Twitter post, “There is no justification for terrorism, under no circumstances.”
“This is a grave attack that proves the concrete barricade concept has gone bankrupt,” Mr. Bennett said of the Tel Aviv attack on Monday, referring to the wall Israel started erecting a decade ago to prevent the entry of West Bank Palestinians into Israel without a permit. “It is impossible to protect people on the street. Rather, you have to make sure that the inciters, firecracker-shooters and rioters sit in prison.”
But leaders of Fatah, the secular faction of the Palestinian president, and Hamas, the Islamist movement that dominates the Gaza Strip, described the attacks as “natural” or “normal” responses to Israeli policies. They cited recent announcements of settlement expansion, and the escalating conflict over the Old City holy site that is revered by Jews as the location of ancient temples and now houses two Islamic shrines, the Al Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.
On Sunday, Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs accused Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders of inciting the recent violence, and showed several video clips to international journalists, including two that specifically encouraged knife attacks.
“The Palestinian people are angry,” said Tayseer Nasrallah, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council. “I don’t condemn these attacks, and I only blame Prime Minister Netanyahu for the stalemated conditions.”
“Even he who owns nothing but his faith has a kitchen in his house in which he has a knife,” Fathi Hamad, a leader of Hamas, said in a Nov. 5 television interview. “He must grab his knife and confront the Zionist enemy.”
Mushir al-Masri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said Israeli “crimes led the youth to fight back and take revenge,” adding, “The only one who’s responsible is the Israeli occupation.”
In a clip from July, a Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, is heard saying that “anyone who owns a knife, a baton, a weapon and a car” and does not attack Israelis “does not belong to Palestine.”
On Sunday, Israeli officials accused Mr. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders of inciting the recent violence, an accusation they illustrated with video clips including two in which Palestinian leaders are heard calling specifically for knife and vehicular attacks.
Tayseer Nasrallah, a leader in Mr. Abbas’s Fatah faction, said in an interview after the Tel Aviv attack that neither the Palestinian Authority nor Fatah, the party that dominates it, had ordered any of the recent attacks. Rather, he said, they were “carried out by angry individuals.”
“Even he who owns nothing but his faith has a kitchen in his house in which he has a knife,” Fathi Hamad, a leader of Hamas, said in a Nov. 5 television interview. “He must grab his knife and confront the Zionist enemy.” In July, another Hamas official had said that “anyone who owns a knife, a baton, a weapon and a car” and does not attack Israelis “does not belong to Palestine.”
He called the stabbing of the soldier “a normal reaction to what’s happening,” citing the stalemated peace process, Israeli announcements about expanding settlements in East Jerusalem and tension in the Old City holy site that Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary.
But some Israeli leaders also laid part of the blame on Mr. Netanyahu, who suffered several political setbacks over the past two days. A left-leaning member of his cabinet resigned in protest of his policy toward the Palestinians, and a conservative figure said he would challenge Mr. Netanyahu for chairmanship of the Likud Party.
“The Palestinian people are angry,” Mr. Nasrallah said. “I don’t condemn these attacks, and I only blame Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu for the stalemated conditions.”
“This is the continuation of a weak stand in front of terrorism,” David Pearl, head of the council of Jewish settlements know as Gush Etzion, said on Army Radio. Shaul Mofaz, a centrist Parliament member and former defense minister, said Israel’s cabinet had been “stuttering” and reactive.
The suspect in the West Bank stabbing is Maher Hamdi al-Hashlamon, 30, who lived in the nearby city of Hebron, according to a relative who gave his name only as Amjad.
“This is not a lone attacker, this is now a security reality — one attack after another, car attacks, stabbing attacks, this is how an intifada begins,” Mr. Mofaz said in a radio interview, referring to previous Palestinian uprisings. “We must initiate,” he added. “Only the cabinet can do that, and until a decision is reached, this wave will only swell.”
According to the Israeli news site Ynet, Mr. Hashlamon served five years in prison for throwing firebombs at an Israeli military patrol, and was released in 2005. His Facebook page includes a photo of a Palestinian man who was killed two weeks ago by Israeli security forces as they tried to arrest him. That man was wanted in connection with the attempted murder of Yehuda Glick, an American-Israeli agitator for greater Jewish access and prayer at a holy site in the Old City.
The suspect in the West Bank stabbing, Maher Hamdi al-Hashlamon, is 30, lives in Hebron and has two children, his relatives said. He served five years in prison for throwing firebombs at an Israeli military patrol and was released in 2005, the Israeli news site Ynet reported.
Bentzi Sau, the police chief in Tel Aviv, said Sergeant Shiloni was stabbed several times by a man who also tried to grab his weapon. Officers followed a trail of dripped blood to the top of a four-story building about 200 yards away, where they arrested the suspect.
Mr. al-Hashlamon’s Facebook page included photos of Al Aqsa and of a Palestinian man who was wanted in connection with the attempted assassination of an activist promoting Jewish prayer at the site; Israeli forces killed the Palestinian man last month. “I’ll be a thorn in the gullet of the Zionist project to Judaize Jerusalem,” the Facebook page said.
According to the suspect’s father, the suspect is Nur al-Din Khaled Abu Hashieh, a resident of the Askar refugee camp on the outskirts of Nablus in the West Bank. The elder Mr. Abu Hashieh said in an interview that his son had dropped out of school after ninth grade to do construction work, and went to Tel Aviv on Sunday in search of a job.
The Tel Aviv suspect, Nur al-Din Khaled Abu Hashieh, left school after ninth grade and had worked illegally in Israel, doing construction, as recently as two months ago, his father, Khaled, said in an interview. The elder Mr. Abu Hashieh said his son was not connected to any political party, and had gone to Tel Aviv on Sunday to look for work.
“He is not involved in politics or in any political party, he is not an activist or a nationalist, he thinks only about getting work,” the father said. “He can’t get a permit to work in Israel, so he sneaks into Israel.”
“He is not an activist or a nationalist, he thinks only about getting work,” the father said. “He can’t get a permit to work in Israel, so he sneaks into Israel.”
The growing unrest has begun to have concrete political consequences for Mr. Netanyahu. One of his most frequent critics on the right, Danny Danon, said on Monday that he would challenge the prime minister for the chairmanship of the Likud Party.
Mr. Netanyahu “seems to have lost his way,” Mr. Danon said on Monday. “We in the Likud elected the prime minister to represent our values, but instead he disengaged from our ideology.”
The day before, a left-leaning minister, Amir Peretz of the Hatnua faction, resigned from Mr. Netanyahu’s cabinet in protest over his leadership, saying the prime minister was “not the solution, he is the problem.”
Separately, in Gaza, the Israeli military fired early Monday at two boats it suspected of smuggling goods from Egypt, sinking the boats and injuring two men.
Hours later, Gaza fishermen were allowed to export their wares to the West Bank for the first time in years. Mounir Abu Hassira, a Gaza fishmonger and restaurant owner, said that some 770 pounds of shrimp, squid, sardines, crab and sea bass, caught by 15 different boats, were sent through the Kerem Shalom crossing into Israel on Monday, bound for the West Bank. The United Nations said the shipment was the first export of fish from Gaza since Israel tightened restrictions on the territory in 2007 after Hamas took power there.
