Terrorist praised would-be assassin of Temple Mount activist

Ibrahim al-Akary, a Hamas member who plowed his van through groups of pedestrians in Jerusalem Wednesday in a deadly terror attack, had glorified the shooter of Jewish activist Yehudah Glick and repeatedly warned against the Jewish presence on Temple Mount, his Facebook activity indicates.

Just hours after the October 29 assassination attempt on Glick, who campaigned for the Jewish right to pray on the Temple Mount, Akary, from the Shuafat refugee camp, posted a message on Facebook praising the would-be killer.

“Praise Allah, an unknown person has targeted settler leader Yehudah Glick — who storms Al-Aqsa daily — and shot him, hitting him directly,” he wrote and later posted an interview with Glick’s shooter, Mu’taz Hijazi. Hijazi was shot dead resisting arrest a few hours later, Israeli officials said.

Hamas rushed to claim responsibility for Akary’s attack in a statement published Wednesday, calling him “a heroic martyr” and follower of “the heroes, Abdelrahman Al-Shaludi [who carried out a similar car attack on October 22] and Mu’taz Hijazi.”

Akary’s brother, Musa al-Akary, is a Hamas activist who was imprisoned by Israel for 19 years for the kidnapping of Israeli soldier Nissim Toledano in 1992 and released in 2011 in the Shalit prisoner exchange,

The 48-year-old Ibrahim al-Akary was evidently a deeply religious man, frequently posting Islamic messages pertaining to the al-Aqsa Mosque.

“It is not for the polytheists to maintain the mosques of Allah [while] witnessing against themselves with disbelief,” he wrote on October 30, quoting from the ninth chapter of the Quran, the Repentance. “For those, their deeds have become worthless, and in the fire they will abide eternally.”

“O mankind, indeed the promise of Allah is truth, so let not the worldly life delude you and be not deceived about Allah by the Deceiver,” he quoted from Quran chapter 35 on October 29. “Indeed, Satan is an enemy to you; so take him as an enemy. He only invites his party to be among the companions of the Blaze.”

Throughout October, Akary posted messages calling for a third Palestinian uprising in Jerusalem, posing in a photo next to a Quran memorization center in “occupied Haifa.”

“What steadfastness,” he wrote.

On November 3, during the Shiite festival of Ashura commemorating the killing of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Hussein in the Battle of Karbala in the year 680, Akary wrote: “The oddities of Ashura: the Jews dance and jump, the Shiites self-flagellate and cut themselves, and the Muslims fast and ask for forgiveness.”

Jerusalem terrorist Ibrahim al-Akary during a visit to Haifa in early October (photo credit: Ibrahim al-Akary Facebook page)

Akary’s final Facebook message, posted Tuesday night, was an image of a document issued by the Islamic Supreme Committee of Jerusalem, listing shifts for Palestinian volunteers to be present at Al-Aqsa Mosque from 7 a.m. to 12 noon, according to their Jerusalem neighborhood of residence. Wednesday was the turn of Wadi Joz, Sheikh Jarrah and the Shuafat Refugee Camp, where Akary lived.