Mother of Damascus Gate assailant arrested for calls to attack Jews
Soldiers also nab East Jerusalem man suspected of driving Palestinian trio to the Old City, where they carried out Friday attack in which Hadas Malka was killed
Israeli forces arrested the mother of a Palestinian man involved in a Jerusalem terror attack last week in which a border guard was killed, as well as another man accused of abetting the attackers, the army said Wednesday.
The woman, who was arrested in the West Bank village of Deir Abu Mashal near Ramallah, is suspected of explicit incitement to terror attacks, including statements praising “martyrs” and calling for attacks on Jews, according to a statement by the IDF.
The suspicions against her include conspiracy. She was not named in the statement.
Staff Sgt. Hadas Malka, 23, was killed by one of three Palestinians who launched a combined stabbing and shooting attack at the Damascus Gate of the Old City in Jerusalem on Friday evening.
At the residence of the woman, the arresting forces, including both IDF soldiers and Border Police officers, found materials calling for violence, including posters and flags, the army said.
Jerusalem Police also arrested a resident of the neighborhood of Issawiya in the east of the city on suspicion of driving the three attackers to the Old City.
Investigators believe the man knew the intentions of his passengers but did not attempt to warn authorities or stop them.
Malka, 23, was on patrol outside the Old City walls when she was attacked on Sultan Suleiman Street near Damascus Gate. She fought her attacker for several seconds while attempting to draw her weapon, according to a Border Police statement. She was stabbed in the chest and transferred in critical condition to Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus in Jerusalem, where she underwent emergency surgery. She later succumbed to her injuries.
She had been in a group of security personnel responding to an attack moments earlier by two other Palestinian assailants, who targeted troops with knives and an automatic weapon at the adjacent Zedekiah’s Cave.
All three attackers were killed. Four other people, including another police officer, were injured in the attacks.
Malka was laid to rest in a military cemetery in the southern coastal city of Ashdod in a service attended by friends and family, as well as army and police officials, government ministers, politicians and others.
Over the past 18 months the Old City, and the Damascus Gate area in particular, have seen many attacks by Palestinians, and in one case a Jordanian national.
The attack took place as Muslims were marking the end of the third Friday of the fasting month of Ramadan, during which tens of thousands of Palestinians from East Jerusalem and the West Bank attended prayers at the nearby Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
The Times of Israel Community.