Palestinian family names baby after Old City terrorist

A Palestinian family in Gaza named its newborn baby after the terrorist Muhannad Halabi, who stabbed to death Israelis Nehemia Lavi and Aharon Banita in Jerusalem’s Old City on Saturday night, badly injured Aharon’s wife Adele and lightly hurt their two-year-old son Matan, an Israel watchdog group reported Tuesday.

Halabi was shot dead by security forces after he snatched a gun and opened fire on them.

News of the Gaza baby-naming was reported by the official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa, and by the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, with both describing the terrorist as a “hero of our people” who was “murdered by the occupation army,” the Palestinian Media Watch organization said.

Al-Hayat Al-Jadida’s headline read, “Muhannad the newborn hugs Muhannad the Martyr, and the two of them unite the homeland,” PMW said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Adele Banita and her baby son Matan, who were injured in a terror attack in Jerusalem’s Old City on October 3, 2015 in which Aharon Banita was killed, at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem on October 5, 2015. (Kobi Gideon/GPO)

It said the new baby was named in his honor even before “the martyr” Halabi was buried.

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The two mothers spoke by phone, and during their conversation, said Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, they “cried from joy: The mother of the baby cried from joy at the birth of her baby, who eternalized the name of the hero among the heroes of our eternal people, and the second mother cried from joy at the birth of the baby that will eternalize the name of her son the Martyr.”

The victims of a fatal stabbing attack in Jerusalem on Saturday October 3, 2015: Nehemia Lavi, 41 (left) from Jerusalem, and Aharon Banita, 22 (right) from Beitar Illit. (Courtesy)