Court suspends home demolition of would-be assassin
Judges rules that family of Mu’taz Hijazi, who shot right-wing activist Yehuda Glick, were likely unaware of his intentions
A committee of three High Court judges on Wednesday suspended a demolition order for the home of a Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem who shot and injured right-wing and Temple Mount activist Yehudah Glick, following an appeal by the shooter’s family members.
Glick was shot and gravely wounded by Mu’taz Hijazi outside the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem on the night of October 29. Hijazi was killed the next morning in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor, after allegedly opening fire on officers who came to arrest him.
The court judges requested that the state issue an explanation regarding the necessity of a home demolition at this point, specifically in light of Glick’s improved condition in recent weeks.
The judges also noted that no evidence suggested the family had any knowledge of the shooter’s intentions, Channel 10 News reported.
The high court committee, however, upheld an order to demolish the East Jerusalem residences of Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal, two terrorists who carried out a deadly attack at a synagogue in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Nof in November. The committee also authorized the state to go forward with plans to demolish the home of East Jerusalem resident Muhammed Naif El-Ja’abis, who carried out a terror attack in Jerusalem in August, killing one man and injuring several others.
In November, Israel resumed its controversial policy of demolishing the homes of terrorists when it razed the Silwan residence of Abdelrahman al-Shaludi. The 21-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem had rammed his car into Israeli pedestrians in October, killing 3-month-old Chaya Zissel Braun and Karen Yemima Muscara, an Ecuadorean woman studying in the city, and was killed by security forces.
The punitive measures have been condemned by the international community, with US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke saying the demolitions “are counterproductive in an already tense situation.”
“This is a practice I would remind that the Israeli government itself discontinued in the past, recognizing its effects,” he said.
Marissa Newsman, Adiv Sterman and AFP contributed to this report.
