Individual Attacks Another Crowd In East Jerusalem
On November 5th, 2014, Al Jazeera reported that a Palestinian who was a member of Hamas drove ” his minivan into a crowded train platform in east Jerusalem on Wednesday and then attacked people with an iron bar after leaving the vehicle, killing one person and injuring 13 before he was shot dead by police. A Hamas statement called the attack an act of “revenge” for Israeli actions in Jerusalem.”
This is not the first of such attacks; in fact, one took place a couple of weeks ago in which an infant was killed by a car that purposely drove near people.
As Al Jazeera explains, “Much of the recent unrest has focused around a sacred compound revered by both Jews and Muslims. It includes Judaism’s holiest site, known as the Temple Mount because of the Jewish Temples that stood there in biblical times. Muslims refer to it as the Noble Sanctuary, on which stands their third holiest site, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.” They go on to explain that “Wednesday’s car attack came shortly after clashes in the Old City, where Palestinians threw rocks and firecrackers at police to protest a planned visit to a key holy site by Israeli supporters of a incendiary rabbi who was shot by a Palestinian gunman last week.”
The issue with that Temple Mount and the Noble Sanctuary is that “Palestinians view such visits as a provocation” (Al Jazeera, 2014).
This is a horrific crime and human rights abuse carried out by Hamas. Regardless of the human rights violations by the Israeli government, this action, as well as the one two weeks ago, should never be condoned, nor justified. The international community must continue to call out all human rights abuses, and must not in any way justify these sorts of actions. It is critical for Israeli and Palestinian citizens to speak out against the Israeli military and their actions in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as Hamas and their actions in East Jerusalem and Gaza.
These sorts of actions not only hurt family members of those killed, but they also stoke further anger, which unfortunately has lead to acts of retaliation in the past. Furthermore, they are completely counterproductive with regards to a possible peace solution with regards to this conflict.
