Jewish schoolchildren attacked with fireworks in Mount of Olives neighborhood

“While children were boarding the bus, they shot fireworks at us from a distance of only several dozen yards,” said a mother.

By World Israel News Staff

Arab teens shot firecrackers at Jewish children on Tuesday in a neighborhood located on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, according to residents.

“We were looking out the window. We saw masked individuals throwing at a preschool,” says Mordechai Taub, who lives in Maale Ha’Zeitim. He says that they appeared to be hurling firecrackers.

The children targeted by the Arab teens fled the scene and managed to avoid injury, Arutz Sheva reported.

When local security guards approached the teens, the attackers shot several firecrackers at the guards before escaping, says the website.

In addition to throwing the firecrackers near the preschool, they also targeted an elementary school bus.

“We went out with the kids to the bus, like every morning,” Hodaya Shomron, a mother of two, told Arutz Sheva.

“While children were boarding the bus, they shot fireworks at us from a distance of only several dozen yards,” she added.

“They didn’t shoot in the air or in some other direction, they fired straight at us, it was just like shooting… The guards closed the gates [of the neighborhood], and together with my husband they approached the Arabs, who shot another firework at them, then fled,” said Shomron.

She said that some ten minutes later, the gates were reopened and the children were able to get on the bus and go to school.

“A few years ago, this was almost a daily occurrence,” Taub told World Israel News.

On one side of the neighborhood, he says, a roadblock was set up and Border Police personnel were positioned there. They remained there roughly six months, Taub adds, during which time the situation “quieted down.”

On the other side of the neighborhood, he says, violence persisted with Molotov cocktail attacks carried out by assailants who would hurl the explosives and escape into the nearby Silwan neighborhood.

Though he concedes that he is not privy to the details of Israeli security activity, Taub says of the attackers that “there are no lone wolves.”

They’re affiliated with groups who push them to carry out attacks at particular times, he asserts, though he could not be sure what the motive was Tuesday, perhaps the situation in the Gaza Strip or Israel’s marking of Memorial Day and Independence Day, Tuesday night through Thursday.