Palestinian shoots 2 Israelis dead

Details of the inquiry into the deadly Palestinian shooting spree that claimed two Israeli lives and injured 6 others in Jerusalem Sunday, Oct. 9, are under a court gag order. However, this attack was clearly different from the run-of-the-mill terror plaguing Israel for the last two years, which its security services have usually prevented in good time or cut short before the damage spread.The two victims were Police Elite Unit (Yasam) officer Yosef Kirma, 29, who was survived by his wife, parents and two brothers, and Levana Malichi, 60, who was mourned by a husband, three daughters and 6 grandchildren.The gunman was not an anonymous knife-wielding lone youth, but well known to the police and security authorities as Musabah Abu Sabit, 39, from Silwan, who fitted the classical profile of a hardened terrorist.Abu Sabit had been in and out of Israeli courts and prisons, charged with grievous bodily harm to police officers, taking illegal military training, torching vehicles and other violent acts.He was due to start serving another four-month jail sentence on the day of his shooting rampage in Jerusalem.

 

This terrorist was also prominent in extremist Palestinian circles as “the Lion of Jerusalem.” He was photographed marching with the flag of the Hamas terrorist group and caught as a activist for the outlawed violent anti-Israel Islamist Murabatun movement.Abu Sabit did not operate underground. His hate-filled inflammatory messages with self-images appeared in Facebook, the latest one two days ago.Homeland Security Minister Gilead Erdan’s stated to the media after the attack that no specific warning had preceded the attack and charged Facebook with responsibility for reopening its pages to Palestinian incitement.Neither claim accounted for the security authorities having missed the vital clue to the coming attack.

 

Read More: Palestinian shoots 2 Israelis dead. Probe ordered