Palestinian teen to be indicted for East Jerusalem shooting that injured 2

A 15-year-old Palestinian boy is to be indicted over a terror shooting last month in which two Israeli men were wounded in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, prosecutors said Thursday.

According to the prosecutors’ statement, the suspect opened fire at the men’s vehicle with a makeshift “Carlo” submachine gun.

Surveillance footage showed the teenage suspect shooting the two men at point-blank range. At some point, the weapon apparently malfunctioned and the suspect fled and discarded the gun, prosecutors said.

According to reports at the time, the suspect then went to school.

The teen was detained during a raid in the West Bank city of Nablus, less than 24 hours after the shooting, and was transferred to the Shin Bet for questioning.

The Israel Defense Forces said last month that the suspect, a resident of the Askar refugee camp near Nablus, implicated himself in the shooting during his first interrogation.

Surveillance camera footage of the attack showed the attacker approaching the victims’ car and opening fire from close range, before fleeing.

The weapon apparently used in the attack was found by officers nearby, police said.

רץ למכונית, יורה מטווח אפס ובורח: תיעוד הפיגוע בירושלים@HGoldich
(צילום: חיים גולדברג, כיכר השבת) pic.twitter.com/L71fppNmR8

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) April 18, 2023

The two victims were treated at the scene and then taken to hospitals in the capital, where they were listed at the time in moderate and stable condition.

The son of one of the victims, Moshe Yosef Hass, said his 60-year-old father and the second victim initially thought somebody had thrown rocks at the vehicle.

“He did not understand what happened. He thought they threw two stones at the car, but then they started to feel terrible pain and realized that they were shot,” Menashe Hass told the Ynet news site. “My father is not one of those people who gets involved in security tensions. For years he has prayed every day at the tomb of Simeon the Just.”

Police at the scene of a terror shooting attack in East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, April 18, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)

The victims were heading to morning prayers at the tomb, in Sheikh Jarrah.

The neighborhood, parts of which were historically known as Shimon Hatzadik, has become one of Jerusalem’s tensest in recent years.

Jewish nationalists have sought to evict Palestinian residents in decades-long legal battles that were among the catalysts in an 11-day war between Israel and the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip in 2021.

Separately, the Israel Defense Forces announced on Thursday its intention to demolish the home of a Palestinian terrorist who carried out a deadly shooting attack in the West Bank town of Huwara in February, killing two Israeli brothers.

The notification was made ahead of the issuing of a demolition order.

The IDF had already measured the home of Hamas member Abdel Fattah Hussein Kharousha — the first step before its potential demolition — in Nablus.

On February 26, Kharousha shot and killed Hallel Yaniv, 21, and Yagel Yaniv, 19, as they drove through Huwara.

Brothers Hallel (left) and Yagel Yaniv, who were killed in a terror attack in the West Bank town of Huwara on February 26, 2023. (Courtesy)

Following the pair’s death, a group of radical settlers rampaged through Huwara, burning homes and vehicles. A Palestinian man was killed in unclear circumstances and multiple people were injured in violence that shocked many in Israel and abroad, with some terming the incident a “pogrom.”

Kharousha was killed in March in Jenin during an IDF operation.

Israel regularly demolishes the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out deadly terror attacks as a matter of policy. The efficacy of the policy has been hotly debated even within the Israeli security establishment, while human rights activists denounce the practice as unjust collective punishment.