Dummy bombs found in East Jerusalem

Two dummy bombs were found in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sur Baher on Sunday morning, days after four people from the same area were arrested in connection with a stone-throwing incident that seriously injured a young Israeli girl.

Police demolition experts removed the devices, which were equipped with timing mechanisms and wires. Police opened an investigation into the incident.

According a report from Ynet, the Jerusalem police were looking into the possibility that the devices were planted as an act of revenge for a stoning attack last Thursday in which two-year-old Avigail Ben Zion was moderately injured while traveling with her parents in Armon Hanatziv, a predominantly Jewish Jerusalem neighborhood just over the Green Line.

Ben Zion, who made a rapid recovery and sustained no internal injuries, was released from the hospital to her home on Sunday.

Police arrested four Arab men aged 15 to 20 suspected of throwing several rocks at the Ben Zion car. The men were brought for a remand extension before the Jerusalem District Court Friday morning.

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The stoning incident came amid a surge in the number and severity of violent attacks against Israelis on both sides of the Green Line in recent months.

Earlier in November, a couple driving along a road in the West Bank near the settlement of Tekoa were wounded, and their car was destroyed, in a Molotov-cocktail attack.

In mid-November, a Palestinian teenager stabbed 19-year-old soldier Eden Atias multiple times in the neck, killing him as he slept in the adjacent seat on a bus at the central bus station in Afula.

The assailant, 16-year-old Hussein Rawarda, had entered Israel illegally in search of work and apparently decided to carry out the deadly attack after failing to be hired by an Israeli employer.

Shortly before the stabbing, former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said the Palestinians were ripe for a “Third Intifada.” However, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that recent attacks were isolated incidents, insisting that “there is no sign of a popular uprising.”

In March, three-year-old Adele Bitton was critically injured when rocks were thrown at her mother’s car near the settlement of Ariel, causing a major accident. She was released from a Ra’anana hospital in July, after nearly two-and-a-half months of treatment in the facility’s intensive care unit.