ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/ROADBLOCKS Israel tightens grip on East Jerusalem in bid to stem attacks

Record ID: 136149

  • Title: ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/ROADBLOCKS Israel tightens grip on East Jerusalem in bid to stem attacks
  • Date: 19th October 2015
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (OCTOBER 19, 2015) (REUTERS) ROADBLOCKS IN EAST JERUSALEM NEIGHBOURHOOD OF ISSAWIYEH SIGN READING IN HEBREW, ARABIC AND ENGLISH 'ISAWIYYA' NEIGHBORHOOD BUILDINGS PALESTINIAN PEDESTRIANS WALKING AFTER PASSING ROADBLOCKS PALESTINIANS PEDESTRIANS PASSING ROADBLOCKS ISRAELI SOLDIER WATCHING PALESTINIANS WALKING AFTER PASSING ROADBLOCKS PALESTINIAN WOMEN OPENING THEIR
  • Embargoed: 3rd November 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Jerusalem
  • City:
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4UXOD96GXWP4TW61W4HCD337J
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Israel set up roadblocks in Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem and deployed soldiers across the country on Monday (October 19) in an effort to stop a wave of Palestinian knife attacks.
    In the latest incident in the city, a Palestinian who attempted a knife attack was killed and another was seriously injured on Saturday (October 17), Israeli authorities said. One Israeli border policewoman was lightly injured.
    Last week, a Palestinian stabbed and wounded a 70-year-old woman outside Jerusalem's central bus station, at the entrance to the city, before an officer shot him dead, a police spokeswoman said.
    Two hours before that incident, another Palestinian was also shot dead after he had attempted to stab paramilitary police at an entrance to Jerusalem's walled Old City, police said.
    The violence has mostly occurred in Jerusalem and the West Bank but it has also erupted along the Gaza-Israel border and in Israel.
    The almost three weeks of violence has killed 41 Palestinians, including assailants and demonstrators at anti-Israeli protests, eight Israelis and now one Eritrean who was shot by a security guard and kicked by an angry Israeli crowd that mistook him for a gunman at a bus station.
    In the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Issawiyeh, Palestinian residents passed through heavily guarded roadblocks and cars were checked by Israeli soldiers.
    Resident Ishaak Hijzai blamed Israel for the situation.
    "Everything that happens is because of the occupation. If this (the occupation) didn't exist, none of this would have happened. Every day the students don't know how to reach the school and they don't get education. Workers, sick people. In the morning, a sick woman was going to the hospital, they didn't let her through so she died. And all of this is because of the occupation," he said.
    The Association for Civili Rights in Israel said the security measures were not legitimate.
    "We understand that the situation now is difficult and that the police need to take measures. However, even when the police do take measures, this needs to be in accordance with the Israeli law. We think what the police are doing now is not legitimate. Blocking off 350,000 people from driving across East Jerusalem is not a legitimate means. Checking each and every student that comes out of Issawiyeh, every school student, is not a legitimate measure. And we call on the Jerusalem police to continue doing its important work of safeguarding life and security while within the restraints that Israeli law has for police work," said Ronit Sela, director of Human Rights in East Jerusalem Project at the Association.
    In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Hannan Ashrawi, member of the executive committee in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) said the security measures were part of "the pervasive cruelty of the Israeli occupation."
    "All these, the state of siege, the checkpoints, these such as and so on, are affecting every aspect of daily life. And they are part of the pervasive cruelty of the Israeli occupation," Ashrawi said in a news conference.
    The violence has been partly triggered by Palestinians' anger over what they see as increased Jewish encroachment on Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, Islam's holiest site outside Saudi Arabia, and also revered by Jews as the site of two destroyed Jewish temples.
    There is also deep-seated frustration with the failure of years of peace efforts to achieve Palestinian statehood and end Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
    Israel's security cabinet had authorized the East Jerusalem crackdown in an overnight session after Palestinians armed with knives and a gun killed three Israelis and wounded several others on Tuesday (October 13).
    Palestinian officials condemned the Israeli security measures - the most serious clampdown in the city since a Palestinian uprising a decade ago - as collective punishment.
    Eight Israelis and 41 Palestinians, including assailants, children and protesters in violent anti-Israeli demonstrations, have been killed in two weeks of bloodshed.
    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has said he will travel to the Middle East to try to calm violence.
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