Palestinian gets 30 years for attempted murders
Judge finds 50-year-old East Jerusalem resident guilty of efforts to sabotage gas lines, carry out an ax attack
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An Israeli court on Wednesday sentenced an East Jerusalem Palestinian man to 30 years in prison for 10 counts of attempted murder, court documents showed.
Aziz Awizat, 50, was found guilty of attempts including an ax attack on a 73-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jewish man near the Old City and the detaching of gas pipes at several homes in the city with the aim of blowing up their Israeli occupants.
After his arrest last March, Awizat told investigators from the Shin Bet security service that reports of an accidental gas explosion that killed three people in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo inspired him to blow up residential buildings.
He said that he surveilled several apartment complexes in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood in Jerusalem before cutting the gas mains to nine of them.
During his trial, Awizat said the attacks were carried out in revenge for the actions of Israeli authorities at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Temple Mount compound, a site holy to both Muslims and Jews.
The compound was the focal point of tension and violence in the city last year, leading to Palestinian attacks that killed a number of Israelis.
The attackers were shot dead by security forces.
Palestinian Muslims accuse Israeli Jews of trying to take over the compound, which houses the Al-Aqsa mosque and the sanctuary of the Dome of the Rock.
Jews are allowed to enter the site, where the biblical temples stood, but not to pray there, and entry is controlled by Israeli security forces.
The Times of Israel Community.