TEL AVIV — A Palestinian man opened fire on a group of Israelis near a holy site in Jerusalem’s Old Cityon Sunday morning, killing one and injuring four others, according to Israeli security forces. Police said they fatally shot the assailant within 32 seconds of the start of the incident, the second attack in the area within the week.
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Israeli Minister of Public Security Omer Bar-Lev said the assailant, 42, is a known member of Hamas’s political wing, who had come to pray on a daily basis at the flashpoint site known by Jews as the Temple Mount and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. Entrance to the Old City was immediately closed and is being investigated as a crime scene.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett ordered an increase of security forces and continued high alert throughout the city “out of concern for copycat attacks.”
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Official Hamas media identified the assailant, Fadi Abu Shkhaydam, as “the leader of the Hamas movement” in the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem.
Bar-Lev said that the shooter’s wife traveled overseas three days ago, and that his children were also abroad. He said that the he gun used was likely smuggled.
He said that according to available footage, the assailant was wearing a long coat, which was either a galabiya, a traditional full-length gown worn throughout the Arab world, or an outfit meant to impersonate the ultra-Orthodox worshippers that regularly come to the holy site.
Hamas said the operation was designed to be a warning to Israel, which it said would “pay for the inequities” at the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, as well as in high-profile neighborhoods in East Jerusalem where Jewish settlers have for years been attempting to evict Palestinian residents.
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On Friday, the same day that his wife was said to have left the country, a Facebook account that appeared to belong to the shooter re-shared a post from 2014 referring to the Quranic story of the Prophet Muhammad’s pilgrimage to al-Aqsa Mosque, near the location of Sunday’s shooting.
The mosque, located on an elevated esplanade on the eastern edge of the Old City, is considered the third holiest place of worship in Islam, after Mecca and Medina. The site is considered the most sacred in Judaism.
Thousands of Jewish worshippers have been visiting the Temple Mount in recent years, bolstered by increased support from far-right politicians within the ruling coalition.
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“Jews should be able to walk throughout the whole country, in Jerusalem and on the Temple Mount, with confidence and without fear,” tweeted Israeli Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, a firebrand who has for years called for increased Jewish access to the site, in response to the attack on Sunday.
Sunday’s shooting follows a stabbing attack last week, carried out by a 16-year-old Palestinian man who was killed at the scene by Israeli police.
A fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was reached at the end of an 11-day conflict last May.
Hazem Balousha contributed from Gaza City.