Likud MK who survived 2014 assassination attempt asks for prayers for ill wife

Likud lawmaker Yehudah Glick, who was almost killed in a 2014 assassination attempt, has asked his followers to pray for the recovery of his wife Yafa who has suffered a severe stroke.

In a tweet on Sunday, Glick wrote that following the shooting attack targeting him in October nearly three years ago for his involvement in advocating for Jewish prayer at the contentious Temple Mount site, “she asked for prayers for me. Now, after a severe stroke, she needs your prayers.”

He followed that up with a second tweet thanking well-wishers “from across the nation” for their messages

In October 2014 ,Glick was shot four times at close range by a Palestinian assailant and was severely injured in the attempted assassination. Several days after the shooting, his wife had organized a rally in Jerusalem for attendees to pray for his recovery, telling them that “The Creator is waiting for us to ascend to Him at the Temple Mount,” and stressing that her husband was a peaceful activist who “wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Glick at the time said that his attacker, Mu’taz Hijazi, told him before he pulled the trigger on October 29 outside a Jerusalem conference center that he was doing it because Glick is “an enemy of al-Aqsa,” the Temple Mount mosque. Hijazi, a member of Islamic Jihad who worked in the conference center’s kitchen, was killed by security forces during an attempted arrest operation outside his eastern Jerusalem home hours after the shooting.

The American-born activist and rabbi entered politics last year after the resignation of former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon.

He last visited the Temple Mount in May of 2016 shortly before he was sworn in, drawing an angry response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Knesset lawmakers have been banned from visiting the Temple Mount since November 2015 as Netanyahu attempted to douse tensions related to an uptick in car-ramming and stabbing attacks that began just a few months earlier.

In March, Glick, who chairs the Temple Mount Heritage Foundation, petitioned the High Court to force the government to allow Knesset members to visit holy site after the ban.

The petition asks the court to stop the police from banning lawmakers from ascending to the esplanade, and specifically to allow Glick himself to freely visit the site, like any other person.

The Temple Mount is the holiest site in Judaism. Known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif or the Noble Sanctuary, it is also the third-holiest site in Islam.

Under the terms of the fragile status quo in place on the Mount for decades, Jews and other non-Muslims can visit but not worship there.

However, high-profile visits and rumors of changes to the status quo have preceded outbursts of violence.

The Mount itself is administered by the Muslims and it was Palestinian claims of alleged Israeli intentions to undermine that Muslim control — claims denied repeatedly by Israel — that allegedly sparked the wave of Palestinian stabbings, car-rammings and shooting attacks that began in September 2015.