After terror attack, Israel said mulling security checks for East Jerusalem teachers

Israeli security forces are reportedly considering requiring teachers from East Jerusalem who seek to work in the city’s public schools to undergo security background checks, following the deadly terror attack earlier this week by a Palestinian high school teacher in the Old City.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, the shooting Sunday by Hamas member Fadi Abu Shkhaydam, which killed Eli Kay, 26, and injured several others, could lead to a change of policy.

Abu Shkhaydam worked at an Islamic boys’ high school, the Rashidiya school, which is located just outside the Old City. He was on the Jerusalem municipality payroll, the city has confirmed. According to Israeli authorities, he was a member of Hamas’s political wing.

“If we had done this earlier, we would avoid a situation in which a terrorist with a background like that of Fadi Abu Shkhaydam becomes a teacher,” an unnamed security official told Kan on Wednesday.

Israel’s various security agencies are discussing the issue, the report said, with the hiring of new East Jerusalem teachers suspended until further notice.

After carrying out the terror attack, Abu Shkhaydam was shot dead by police at the scene following a brief gun battle.

On Monday, Palestinian media circulated what they claimed was a last letter sent by Abu Shkhaydam to his Hamas comrades and his students.

“From when I first walked, and I drank of the Quran… I dreamed of meeting God as a martyr,” Abu Shkhaydam allegedly wrote.

“We must steer the ship with our blood, and serve as the practical example of the way of jihad,” Abu Shkhaydam said, using an Islamic religious term meaning “struggle.”

Thousands attended the funeral of Eli Kay, who was killed in the attack, in Modiin on Monday afternoon. Kay, a recent immigrant from South Africa who was employed at the Western Wall as a tour guide, had been walking to work when he was shot dead.