(Jerusalem) Two bomb attacks at Jerusalem bus stops killed an Israeli-Canadian teenager and injured 14 on Wednesday, using a modus operandi that had not been used since 2016 in the Holy City.
A first explosion killed one and injured 11, then a second sounded a short distance away, injuring at least three, according to hospital sources.
The double attack has not been claimed. It was perpetrated against the backdrop of an upsurge in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and negotiations over the formation of a government led by former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who could be the most right-wing in history of Israel.
“Explosive charges were placed in both places […] it is a combined attack”, indicated the Israeli police which reinforced security in Jerusalem. A security source said the bombs were activated remotely.
PHOTO MAHMOUD ILLEAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A 15-year-old boy was killed in the double bombings as he waited for the bus to go to his Talmudic school. This is Aryeh Schupak according to outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s office.
“It is with great sadness that I learned of the death of a young Canadian in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, […] Canada condemns this violence in the strongest terms,” responded Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The double attack was also strongly condemned by the European Union and the United States, which “stand resolutely with the people of Israel in the face of the terrorist attacks” according to a press release from the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.
“Dedicated to great things”
Hundreds of people, mostly ultra-Orthodox, gathered in Jerusalem for the funeral of the young man whose body was covered with a talit, a ritual shawl used by Jews for prayer.
He “loved the Torah” and was “dedicated to great things,” said Naftali Schreiber, one of his teachers.
His father recited the prayer for the dead before the body was taken to its final resting place at Har Hamenuhot cemetery in Jerusalem. “He’s a boy who never hurt anyone and who was murdered simply because he was Jewish,” Yair Lapid said.
PHOTO MENAHEM KAHANA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The outgoing prime minister held an emergency meeting with the heads of the security services and Israeli army chief Aviv Kohavi cut short his visit to the United States to return to Israel.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has “welcomed” the attacks in Jerusalem, which it considers to be “the price of the crimes and aggressions” of Israel “against our people”.
In the wake of deadly anti-Israeli attacks in the spring, the army carried out more than 2,000 raids in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by Israel, notably in Jenin and Nablus. The violence in the West Bank has killed more than 125 Palestinians, the heaviest toll in seven years.
Funerals in the West Bank
On Wednesday, a packed crowd gathered for the funeral in Nablus of Ahmed Chéhadé, a 16-year-old Palestinian killed by the Israeli army during clashes with local fighters, according to the Palestinian Authority.
Another Palestinian, Hicham Abu Kichek, 22, injured in the nightly clashes, died on Wednesday evening, according to a statement from the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Also in the West Bank, Tiran Faro, a young Israeli from the Druze minority who died of a “serious road accident” was “kidnapped” from Jenin hospital, where he was pronounced dead according to the military, but not his death. family.
“He was still alive, I saw him breathing, they (armed men) disconnected him from the machine to kidnap him,” the young man’s father told Ynet radio. “I ask everyone to bring my son back to me.”
The abduction has not been claimed, but local sources told AFP that Palestinian fighters in a nearby refugee camp were in possession of the body.
The abductions of Israelis, dead or alive, have already been used in the past as bargaining chips by armed groups in order to demand the release of prisoners or the return of the bodies of Palestinians killed in clashes and kept by Israel.
“If Tiran’s body is not returned, the kidnappers will pay a heavy price,” Mr. Lapid warned on Wednesday.