Free Republic

Eyad Hallaq liked to watch cartoons. He loved dressing up and wearing cologne. He even dreamed of getting married. But his favorite activity was walking to school, where he volunteered in the kitchen, preparing meals for his fellow special-needs students. Early on Saturday, the 32-year-old Palestinian with severe autism was chased by Israeli border police forces into a nook in Jerusalem’s Old City and fatally shot as he cowered next to a garbage bin after apparently being mistaken for an attacker. He was just a few meters (yards) from his beloved Elwyn El Quds school. The shooting has drawn comparisons...

The European Union formally condemned the demolition of illegal Arab apartment buildings near Israel’s security barrier separating Jerusalem from Palestinian Authority-controlled areas, and demanded Israel halt its enforcement of demolition orders. In a statement issued Monday afternoon, the European Union’s foreign affairs department said the demolitions undermine the “viability of the two-state solution”. “Israeli authorities have proceeded with the demolition of 10 Palestinian buildings, containing some 70 apartments, in Wadi al Hummus, part of Sur Baher neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem. The majority of the buildings are located in Area A and B of the West Bank where, according to...

One of the victims in Friday morning’s terror attack in the Old City of Jerusalem has been identified as a 16-year-old boy, who was attacked as he made his way from morning prayers at a local synagogue back to his yeshiva. “On his way back from the Hurva synagogue to the yeshiva, someone jumped him from one of the courtyards,” the victim’s father told Reshet Bet. “The ridiculous thing is that at the beginning, the police told him to ‘Get out of here’, they didn’t understand that he was wounded. He walked to the synagogue to call for help.” The...

A Palestinian court sentenced an American-Palestinian on Monday to life imprisonment for violating a ban on selling land to Israelis, judiciary officials said. The U.S. ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, called in November for dual national Issam Akel to be released, saying his suspected crime was “selling land to a Jew” and his incarceration violated American values. Akel was accused of attempting to sell a property in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem without the permission of his business partners or Palestinian authorities. Palestinian officials have not publicly identified the intended buyer. The Higher Offences Court in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank,...

Turkish identification papers have been found on the terrorist who was reportedly eliminated by security forces after he stabbed a security guard on Hagai Street in Jerusalem's Old City. .....

Will the name of America’s 45th president become a permanent fixture in the Old City of Jerusalem? According to a report by the Hebrew daily Yediot Ahronot on Wednesday, Israel Railways, Israel’s national train operator, is planning on naming the last stop in Jerusalem for its new train line after President Donald Trump, in honor of his historic December 6th recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city. The station will be the final stop on the Tel Aviv to Jerusalem train line, which is slated to open next spring. The new train line, which will operate alongside the city’s light...

US-backed fighters in Syria say they have removed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) from Raqqa’s Old City, bringing them closer than ever to the armed group’s most well-defended positions. “Our forces today seized full control of the Old City in Raqqa after clashes with Daesh,” Talal Sello, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), told AFP news agency on Friday, using the Arabic acronym for ISIL. Sello said the SDF was now on the edges of ISIL’s “security quarter in the city centre, where most of its main bases are”. Most...

The Islamic State (ISIS) on Friday night claimed responsibility for the stabbing and shooting attack in the Old City of Jerusalem, in which 23-year-old Border Police officer Hadas Malka was murdered. According to the SITE Intelligence Group, ISIS identified the attackers and referred to them as “lions of the Caliphate”. If authentic, this is the first time that ISIS has claimed a terrorist attack in Israel. Earlier on Friday, Hamas welcomed the attack but did not claim it. …

MainAll NewsDefense/SecurityNetanyahu: Jordan is playing both sides of the game Netanyahu: Jordan is playing both sides of the game Jordan fumes at Israel for killing terrorist, demands 'explanation.' Netanyahu: Jordan must condemn all terror. Contact Editor Nitsan Keidar, 13/05/17 22:18 Share Prime Minister Binyamin NetanyahuPrime Minister Binyamin NetanyahuMiriam Alster/Flash90 Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu slammed Jordan's response to Saturday's terror attack. "It is outrageous to hear the Jordanian government's speaker support the terror attack which occurred today in Jerusalem's Old City," a statement from Netanyahu's office said. "The security video clearly shows a Jordanian tourist stabbing an Israeli policeman with...

Russia on Thursday publicly recognized West Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel. The announcement was made in a statement by Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs that addressed the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. In the statement, Moscow reaffirmed its "support for the two-state solution" while acknowledging that East Jerusalem should be the capital of the future Palestinian state.

Russia’s unexpected announcement recognizing Israel’s eternal capital of Jerusalem, a dramatic decision that places Vladimir Putin against Donald Trump in a totally new big-power rivalry – the race to Jerusalem. Many American and Israeli Jews have waited with mounting impatience for Trump to keep his campaign promise to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Against an atmosphere of US equivocation, Putin suddenly announced, without preamble or restricting conditions, the recognition of Israel’s capital, to take effect immediately.

The New York Times reports: JERUSALEM — It was a typical day at the shrine around what many believe is the tomb of Jesus in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Health Minister Ya’akov Litzman (United Torah Judaism) ordered an investigation on Friday to check suspicions that Arab medical staff at a clinic in Jerusalem’s Old City did not go out to help Jewish victims, who were stabbed right next to the clinic. The incident in question is the brutal murder of Aharon Banita Bennett (21) and Rabbi Nehemia Lavi (41), which took place on Hagai Street on October 3. Bennett’s wife was seriously wounded and his two-year-old son was lightly wounded in the Arab terrorist attack. …

Thanks to near-complete video camera coverage in Jerusalem's Old City, the identities of Arabs who mocked, kicked, and hit Adelle Banita-Bennett as she staggered through the streets of Jerusalem's Old City are known, and they will be prosecuted, Israeli officials said. A Channel 2 report Monday night said the identities of the Arabs who thought that Banita-Bennett's life-threatening injuries were “funny” will be brought to trial for incitement, failing to offer assistance, and acting as accomplices in an attempted murder. On Sunday afternoon, the Adelle Banita-Bennett, widow of Aharon Banita-Bennett, who herself was seriously injured in the stabbing attack Saturday...

..... Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FRtjBjvMbY The video was filmed near the Lion's Gate of the Old City, and in it gunfire, screams and a baby crying can be heard as the mayhem unfolds. At around 12 seconds into the video the terrorist, wearing a black sweatshirt, can apparently be seen stabbing a victim in a white shirt from behind. He follows after his falling victim and repeatedly stabs him on the ground. Shouts of "Allahu akbar" (Allah is greater), traditionally shouted by terrorists as they attack, is heard around the same time. In the attack the terrorist attacked a family with a...

Britain’s advertising watchdog has banned an Israeli government tourism advert for suggesting that the Old City of Jerusalem was part of Israel, AFP reported. The newspaper brochure showed a panorama of the walled Old City with the text “Israel has it all”, and was ruled misleading by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which said it implied the UNESCO World Heritage Site was part of Israel. The international community regards the Old City as “occupied Palestinian territory” and has never recognized Israel’s annexation of parts of Jerusalem it liberated during the Six Day War. Following a complaint, the ASA ruled the...

The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry slammed Israel on Thursday for having called off a United Nations investigative mission to Jerusalem's Old City, calling it an act of "contempt of international law and institutions," according to AFP. The ministry said it "condemns in the strongest possible terms the decision of Israel, the occupying power, to prevent the technical mission of UNESCO from carrying its monitoring mission in the Old City of Jerusalem and its Walls." The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was scheduled earlier this month to assess the state of the Old City of Jerusalem, the first...

Another day, another story of a brutal attack by Arabs against Jews. And as usual, most news outlets will not cover this news. A large-bodied Arab man attacked an elderly Jew in Jerusalem's Old City last Saturday. The victim's daughter, Tali Hoffman, told Arutz Sheva that her father was making his way to Shacharit prayers, as he does every Sabbath, from his home in the Muslim Quarter to the Kotel. When he arrived at HaGay Street, just a few dozen meters from the Kotel, the Arab man stepped out of a falafel shop and tried to knock him down by...

A Jewish woman has been rescued from a years-long abusive marriage in the Muslim Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, activists with the Lehava anti-assimilation organization report. Lehava head Bentzi Gopstein spoke to Arutz Sheva following the rescue. The woman, “A,” reached out to Lehava after a friend of hers had been rescued from a similar abusive marriage with the group’s help. “The friend was helped in rehabilitation by Rabbanit Baranes… She told ‘A’ about us, and that’s how we succeeded in helping her,” Gopstein said. The assistance provided by Lehava extended to 'A'’s small children, who are three...

The Supreme Court on Monday ordered two Arab squatters in Jerusalem’s Old City to vacate the homes they are occupying. Lawyer Mohammed Dahleh said the court had rejected his clients’ appeal on the basis that the properties had been legally acquired by Jewish prior to the establishment of Israel in 1948. “It went through the Magistrates Court, the District Court and now the Supreme Court,” Dahleh said. The Supreme Court also ordered the plaintiff's – Ghazi Zalum’s house and Ismail Wazwaz – to pay all the legal costs. Both properties – one a residence, the other a shop – are...