Truck rams into Israeli soldiers in Jerusalem killing 4

A truck rammed into a group of Israeli occupation soldiers who were disembarking from a bus in occupied Jerusalem Sunday, killing four people and wounding 15 others, Israeli police and rescue services said.

Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said the truck veered off course and rammed into the group. She said the attacker was shot dead.

Israel’s rescue service MDA said the four casualties were in their 20s and included three women and a man. Of the 15 wounded, one was in serious condition.

Israel’s police chief Roni Alsheich told reporters the attacker was from a Palestinian neighborhood in occupied east Jerusalem and forces had no advance warning. He refused to elaborate and a gag order was placed on further details pending an investigation.Sunday’s incident marks the first Israeli casualties in three months.

Since October 2015, Israel and the Palestinian territories have been rocked by a series of stabbing, shooting and car ramming attacks which have left more than 280 Palestinians, 30 Israelis and three foreign nationals dead

The violence comes against the backdrop of growing violence in the Palestinian territories in response to an uptick in Jewish raids on Al Haram Al Sharif. Israel has been imposing restrictions on Palestinians from accessing the Muslim site—the third holiest in Islam— to pave the way for more colonists to raid the holy shrine and perform their Jewish and Talmudic rituals inside the holy site.

Under a status quo agreement, Jews may visit Al Haram Al Sharif, but may not perform religious rituals there.

Israel has also banned Palestinians from burying their dead in specific parts of Bab Al Rahma cemetery, a resting place for many of the city’s historic figures.

Israel has also removed Arabic signage from many streets in Occupied Jerusalem replacing them instead with Hebrew signs in an attempt to Judaise the city and erase any Palestinian or Muslim identity.

Israel continues to build illegal colonies on Palestinian land, routinely demolishes Palestinian homes and carries out extrajudicial killings of Palestinians with little or no reproachment from Washington.

Meanwhile Israeli police made seven arrests overnight following an unruly protest against the manslaughter conviction of a soldier for shooting dead a wounded Palestinian, police said on Sunday.

Those detained are accused of public order offences during a demonstration outside the occupied Jerusalem residence of President Reuven Rivlin following a reconciliation rally in Tel Aviv.

An eighth person was arrested on charges of seeking to disrupt Saturday’s rally in the commercial capital.

Another was detained on suspicion of taking part in a hate campaign against armed forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot, who ordered the prosecution of Sergeant Elor Azaria that angered many on the Israeli right.

Since a military court found Azaria guilty on Wednesday, there has been a wave of public protest and threats against officials involved in the prosecution of the 20-year-old French-Israeli infantryman.

After the verdict was read out, protesters scuffled with police outside military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Radio and television channels broadcast recordings of the demonstrators chanting that the chief of staff should beware unless he wanted to share the fate of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish extremist in 1995.

“Gadi, Gadi be careful, Rabin is looking for a friend,” they shouted.

Azaria’s conviction has deeply divided Israeli public opinion between those who believe he was wrongly tried and those who say the conviction was the right and proper consequence of his actions.

Right-wing politicians - including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu - have already called for Azaria to be pardoned, even though he has yet to be sentenced and his lawyers say he may appeal.

He faces up to 20 years in prison.

The March 24 shooting in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron was caught on video and spread widely online.

It showed Abdul Fatah Al Sharif, 21, lying on the ground, shot along with another Palestinian. Azaria then shoots him again in the head without any apparent provocation.

The video was filmed by a Palestinian volunteer for Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

“The fact that one soldier was convicted today does not exonerate the Israeli military law enforcement system from its routine whitewashing of cases in which security forces kill or injure Palestinians with no accountability,” B’Tselem said after the verdict.

The case had been portrayed by some as a test of whether Israel’s military could prosecute one of its own, though many Palestinians argued Azaria was only put on trial because of the video.

The military has said it began investigating before the video’s release.

The last time an Israeli soldier was convicted of manslaughter was in 2005, Israeli media reported.

source : gulfnews