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Jewish neighborhood attacked by Arabs, Israeli police accused of ‘not protecting Jewish lives’

Religious Zionism MK calls on Israeli police to shift priorities back to protecting Jewish lives.

By Lauren Marcus, World Israel News

After a Saturday night attack involving Molotov cocktails, firecrackers, and stones and other projectiles being hurled at Jewish residents and homes in an eastern Jerusalem neighborhood, MK Orit Strock said that the Israeli police’s priorities are not focused on protecting Jewish lives.

Residents of the Ma’aleh HaZeitim compound on the Mount of Olives said that rioters from nearby Arab neighborhoods launched an offensive against the Jewish community on Saturday evening.

“This evening, we suffered a harsh attack. Firebombs, shooting explosives, lynching Jewish drivers who drove past the square here and were injured,” one resident told Arutz Sheva. “An entire neighborhood is under siege.”

The resident said that the police had “failed greatly” in managing the situation, with the authorities taking “a long time to arrive” and focusing on bringing stranded Jews “back into the neighborhood, while the Arabs continued firing.”

For about two hours, another resident told Hebrew language media, it was impossible to enter or exit the neighborhood, describing the Jewish community as being “under seige.”

At the time, the Israeli police said in a statement that they had “received a report regarding rock throwing, firebombs, and shooting explosives at a vehicle and at a home in the Ras al-Amud area in eastern Jerusalem.”

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“As a result of this, there were reports at the scene of a number of people who were lightly injured. In addition, it seems that shots were fired into the air at the scene, and the circumstances are currently being investigated.”

MKs from the Religious Zionism party visited the neighborhood on Monday, with Strock telling Arutz Sheva that the police “should not dedicate all of its forces to dispersing riots at the Chords Bridge instead of protecting the lives of the residents who are supposed to be able to live here in peace and tranquility.”

But while police are expending resources breaking up the protests, Jewish communities are dealing with unprecedented violence, Strock said.

There is a breakdown in law and order all across the state, she added, mentioning a massive brawl at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba over the weekend, and said that the police must reexamine its focuses.

“It’s all connected, because in the end, it’s all a question of dividing police resources and what priorities are,” Strock said.

“Apparently Jewish residents who live a few meters away from the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, and the safety of those hospitalized in Soroka, are not important enough and are not at the top of the priority list. And that’s a very serious thing, in my opinion.”