Court remands relatives of Palestinian who stabbed police in Jerusalem

A Jerusalem court remanded for two days four family members of a Palestinian from East Jerusalem who was killed stabbing two border guards in an attack outside the capital’s Old City early Monday.

The suspects include one of Muhammad Ibrahim Mattar’s brothers, his parents, and one other family member, police said.

Police raided Mattar’s home in the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood on Monday morning, hours after he stabbed the two police officers outside the Old City’s Lions’ Gate.

Mattar was shot by the guards during the attack and later died of his wounds.

Evidence collected from the family home included a flag with the logo of the Hamas terrorist group, police said.

It was not immediately clear from police statements why the family members were under investigation.

Mattar, 25, stabbed the officers with a large butcher’s knife shortly before dawn, moderately injuring them, according to police.

The officers were taken by paramedics to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in the city for treatment. Their condition was stable and they were fully conscious when they arrived, a hospital spokesperson said.

Pictures posted on social media showed large numbers of police officers in Jabel Mukaber in the hours that followed, as well as the four family members being taken away by officers.

Several terrorists have emerged from the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood, southeast of the Old City, including a man who drove a truck into a group of soldiers in January, killing 4.

Monday’s attack came as extra police were deployed around Jerusalem for the holiday of Purim, celebrated in the capital a day later than most other places.

“General security measures continue in Jerusalem as the Purim festival is being celebrated today,” a police spokesperson said.

Police credited the “increased deployment” with “bringing this incident to an end in a short amount of time.”

A closure was also placed on the West Bank and Gaza, a standard procedure during Jewish holidays.

The Old City has been the site of numerous stabbing attacks and attempted stabbing attacks since the start of a Palestinian wave of violence in October 2015.

Though a marked drop has been recorded by security officials in recent months, 40 Israelis, two Americans, a Palestinian and an Eritrean national have been killed in the spate of stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks that began a year and a half ago.

According to AFP figures, some 250 Palestinians, a Jordanian and a Sudanese migrant have also been killed, most of them in the course of carrying out attacks, Israel says, and many of the others in clashes with troops in the West Bank and at the Gaza border, as well as in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket attacks.

The spate of Palestinian attacks that began in October 2015 was dubbed the “lone wolf” intifada, as many of the attacks were carried out by individuals who were not connected to any terror group.

The attacks were at first attributed to tensions over Palestinian fears that Israel was seeking to change the status quo on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a charge Israel has repeatedly and vehemently denied. Palestinian leaders have argued that the primary cause for attacks during this period was despair caused by Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank.

The Hamas terror group, which controls the Gaza Strip, continues to refer to each attack as a part of a “Jerusalem Intifada.”