UN-Truth

This photo is published in today’s Jerusalem Post: “Police sappers check the body of a 19-year-old Palestinian bystander killed in the crossfire between Palestinian gunmen and Israeli security men…”

What is particularly shocking about this incident is that it took place basically in Jerusalem — and that the reaction has been so muted. Is that because the Israelis who were shot were not members of the Israeli Defense Forces, but were private security guards — showing the privatization of the occupation — and Israeli border policemen, many of whom are Druse Arab Palestinians?

The Jerusalem Post reported that “On Sunday it emerged that the two assailants did not cross into Jerusalem from the West Bank, or slip through the partially completed security barrier in the area, but simply walked up to the security patrol from the nearby Arab village, which falls within city limits and is on the Israeli side of the security barrier in the area. One of the Israeli security men, 26, was shot in the chest and was listed in serious condition, while the other was hit in the legs and was in moderate condition. The condition of both improved overnight, and they were both listed in stable condition at Jerusalem’s Hadassah-University Hospital at Ein Kerem. ‘We were at the security post and I was talking to the security guard when suddenly two people approached on foot’, recounted border policeman Isam Abu-Rish from his hospital bed. ‘We did not suspect them at all, but suddenly one of them shot me in the back at point-blank range. I got out of the way and I saw that he was trying to shoot me again but that his gun jammed, and I immediately shot him and the second terrorist who shot the other guard and was running towards me’, Abu-Rish said. ‘I told myself that this was like in a movie. They even had the chance to shout Allah Akbar’, he added. The routine barrier patrol in the area, which has become a target for Palestinian terror groups, includes border policemen and civilian guards. ‘We are not surprised that the passages [in the security barrier] have become targets, and this issue was and will be dealt with’, Jerusalem police chief Ilan Franco said. The security barrier going up around Jerusalem is meant to thwart Palestinian suicide bombers from entering the city. The 84-km. barrier going up on the outskirts of Jerusalem, which is about two-thirds complete, will place 55,000 Arab residents in the city living in four outlying Jerusalem neighborhoods on the Palestinian side of the barrier, with the remaining 185,000 Arab residents of the city on the Israeli side, officials said.
Construction on the nationwide project began in 2002 but has been repeatedly slowed by scores of legal challenges, some of which are still pending, as well as by political uncertainties over the barrier’s exact routing. Israel has refused to erect the Jerusalem-area barrier within the capital which would have effectively divided east and west Jerusalem, and abetted the Palestinians who want to set up their capital in the eastern part of the city. Arab residents of the borderline neighborhood where the Saturday night shooting took place have even petitioned the High Court of Justice to be on the Israeli side of the barrier”…
See full article in the Jerusalem Post here.

Filed under: Israel, Palestine & Palestinians, Register of damages due to The Wall