Wednesday’s hit-and-run, where Abd al-Rahman al-Shaludi, 21, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, rammed his car onto pedestrians waiting at a Jerusalem light rail stop killing a three-month old Chaya Zissel Braun became the latest outburst between Israelis and Palestinians since summer’s start. Following the crash, al-Shaludi sprinted from the scene. He was then gunned down by an undercover police officer in the area.
For Israelis, the garish sequence seemed reminiscent of the second Intifada, a nightmare returned out of thin air. “Her parents waited for a child for many years during which they did not merit to have children. Today they were coming back from praying at the Kotel [Western Wall] and a terrorist came and ran over their baby,”said Braun’s grandfather Shimshon Halperin in a statement released by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Her funeral was held at midnight on Wednesday.
Harkening back to the same language used during this past summer’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza, Netanyahu vowed Wednesday to “restore quiet and security.” Indeed there was calm within hours at the site of the Jerusalem light rail stop. Yet the quiet was temporary–as has been the case in Jerusalem over recent months. Twelve right-wing Israelis calling for “Jewish revenge” were arrested at a protest at the location of the death Thursday night.
Hours after al-Shaludi was shot on Wednesday, Israeli police searched his family home, catalyzing clashes that had erupted after news of his death broke. According to the Majd Gaith, a photographer with the Wadi Hilweh Information Center, a Palestinian monitoring and advocacy group also located in Silwan, around 200 police and 100 Palestinians clashed in his East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan with live bullets and tear gas. Gaith said the clashes have spilled into Thursday, with intermittent stone throwing at the increased police presence in the neighborhood.
As for al-Shaludi’s remains, a Jerusalem district court approved an autopsy ordered by police Thursday afternoon–against family wishes. While mourning at the hospital where the body is being held, relatives were arrested. Jallal al-Shaludi, 24, al-Shaludi’s cousin and az-Aldeen al-Shaludi, 15, al-Shaludi’s brother, are still in custody. It is unknown if charges have been filed against the two. Police Spokesperson Inspector Micky Rosenfeld who did not have specific details qualified that the arrests and questioning of family members was “Just general standard procedure.”
Al-Shaludi had been in jail three times before on security related charges. His home in Silwan is a hamlet just beyond the Old City walls that bears more resemblance to a crowded pastoral West Bank town than the hulking limestone buildings iconic to Jerusalem. Increasingly settlers have moved into the center of Silwan, their numbers doubling in the past week. There presence is a longstanding source of tension, but compounded after nearly three months of daily clashes with police since the killing of 16-year old Mohammed Abu Khdeir in July when Israelis burned to death the young Palestinian.
Moreover less than a week ago a similar situation to the Jerusalem attack occurred. In a different hit and run an Israeli driver fled a crash that killed five-year old Einas Khalil from a village outside of Ramallah. And so al-Shaludi’s killing was a coup de grâce for the Palestinian neighborhood that sees itself under a siege of sorts. His death regaled as that of a martyr, as he was killed while fleeing. His supporters are quick to point out he posed no imminent threat at that point.
“We will insist on our rights and on our obligation to defend our capital,” said Netanyahu to Moshe Edr, the Jerusalem district officer who shot al-Shaludi. “We will do strongly – and we will win,” he continued.
It is a daunting time for the embattled prime minister who is tasked with keeping his coalition together amidst the Jerusalem light rail attack. After presiding over a summer war that cost Israel its highest soldier casualties since June 1967, Netanyahu has lost steam to the rising charismatic darling of the settler movement, Economic Minister Naftali Bennett.
Peter Beaumont reported in The Guardian this week that Bennett is threatening to pull his Jewish Home party out of Netanyahu’s bloc if the prime minister does not increase settlement tenders. This offers context to his response to Wednesday’s killing because it took place in Ammunition Hill in East Jerusalem, a neighborhood mixed with Palestinians and religious Israelis (part of the some 250,000 settlers living in East Jerusalem). Politically, Netanyahu needs to respond in a way that not only guarantees Israelis their security in the most basic sense, but he must also address the existential question of Jerusalem’s status. If the city is united, as he said yesterday—“United Jerusalem was – and will remain – Israel’s eternal capital. All attempts to attack its residents will be met with a very sharp reaction”—then why did this attack happen?
“Police Spokesperson Inspector Micky Rosenfeld who did not have specific details qualified that the arrests and questioning of family members was “Just general standard procedure”
Right, cuz we all remember how they arrested the families of Abu Khdair’s killers.
What a nasty, vile PM. He represents his nation well.
I condemn the murderous actions of Abd al-Rahman al-Shaludi.
>> “We will insist on our rights and on our obligation to defend our capital,” said Netanyahu …
Israel has every right and obligation to defend its capital of Tel Aviv. Israel has no right to occupy and colonize Jerusalem or any other land outside of its / Partition borders.
RE: “United Jerusalem was – and will remain – Israel’s eternal capital. All attempts to attack its residents will be met with a very sharp reaction” ~ Netanyahu (speaking yesterday after the attack)
MY COMMENT: Wednesday’s attack by al-Shaludi was truly a godsend for Netanyahu!
Please don’t insert self starting videos. They are grossly annoying when the sound comes on a full volume in a house where people are asleep. Make a damn policy NOT to do this!