Gaza-based terror group urges Jerusalem Arabs to “mobilize” and prepare for major confrontation.
By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News
Gaza-based terror group Hamas warned Jewish residents of the eastern Jerusalem Shimon HaTzadik (Sheikh Jarrah) neighborhood that they will face retribution for their “aggression” after widespread clashes in the area on Saturday night led to three injuries and five arrests of Arab rioters.
Hamas’ Jerusalem Affairs spokesman, Muhammad Hamada, said that Israel will soon “face consequences for this rampage, which is an explosive game that will explode in its face.”
Categorizing the residents of the originally Jewish neighborhood as “settlers,” Hamada said that the attack on “our people in Sheikh Jarrah, led by Ben Gvir in the darkness of night, is blatant aggression and playing with fire in Jerusalem, and all of Palestine will come to [Sheikh Jarrah’s] aid.”
Hamada called on Arabs in Jerusalem and residents of PA-controlled cities in Judea and Samaria to “mobilize” and encouraged “confrontation of the oppressive occupation and its cowardly settlers.”
The latest round of clashes began on Friday night, when local Arabs hurled a Molotov cocktail into the home of a Jewish family.
Although no one was hurt, the home was severely damaged. Activists say that the house has been repeatedly targeted prior to this incident, and that the police have failed to intervene.
After learning of the attack on Saturday evening, MK Itamar Ben Gvir of the Religious Zionism party announced that the establishment of a “parliamentary office” in the neighborhood in order to secure additional protection for Jewish residents.
“I’m bringing back my parliamentary office in Shimon Hatzadik. If terrorists wanted to burn a Jewish family alive and there are no cops, then I’m arriving on the scene,” he wrote on Twitter, alongside a video of the home in flames.
Arabs in the neighborhood immediately began rioting after news of Ben Gvir’s intention to travel to the area.
Israeli security forces arrested five Arab rioters who threw stones and other projectiles at police and Jews.
An Arab man was arrested after driving his car into a group of Jews, in what police initially suspected was a car-ramming attack. No one was seriously hurt.
However, police told Israeli media that the man was allegedly pepper sprayed while driving and had accidentally driven into the crowd.
The neighborhood has long been the site of tension between Jews and Arabs. Originally settled and developed by Jews in the late 19th century, Jewish residents of Sheikh Jarrah were forced to flee during the 1948 War of Independence.
A nearly four-decade-long court battle has found that several of the compounds where Arab families currently live are the property of Jewish organizations.
The Arab families hold that deeds and documents proving the land is owned by Jews are fraudulent and have vehemently rejected compromises which would see them pay a symbolic amount of annual rent ($500) to the rightful owners of their properties in exchange for residency rights.