After the terror attack in Jerusalem on Wednesday by Hamas member Abdelrahman Shaludi that killed a baby, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday vowed that future attacks will feel the “harshest response.”
“Jerusalem is united and was, and always will be, the eternal capital of Israel. Any attempt to harm its residents will be met with the harshest response,” Netanyahu said, reports AFP.
In the attack, Shaludeh drove his car into a crowd of people getting off the light rail at the Ammunition Hill station, wounding nine including fatal wounds to the three-month-old infant Chaya Zisel Braun hy”d. Shaludeh was shot trying to escape, and later died of his wounds.
Netanyahu added that the attack “is supported by the Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas – who glorifies the murderers and also embraces the organization that they are part of, Hamas.”
Indeed, a senior aid to Abbas was quick to praise the terrorist murder of the three-month-old, calling Shaludi a “hero.” That sentiment was shared by the PA’s “unity partner” Hamas, which celebrated the terror attack.
“Faced with this action by the PA chairman we are met with international weakness, they aren’t ready to say two words – even one word – of criticism against him,” said Netanyahu. “We don’t have that kind of weakness, we will stand firm on our rights and our obligations to defend our capital.”
Speaking on Thursday at a Mount Herzl in a memorial to former Tourism Minister Rehavam (Ghandi) Ze’evi, who was murdered in 2001 on Mount Scopus by a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist, Netanyahu noted “we are fighting the terror that struck Ghandi since the foundation of the state, and even before then.”
“Ghandi was murdered not far from the place where Chaya was murdered yesterday, an innocent three-month-old baby,” noted the prime minister. “I will say something very simple – we will return the quiet and the peace to the residents of Jerusalem. We have the ability and as in other campaigns against terror we will win here too.”
The attack is in fact the latest in a recent worrying upsurge of terror attacks in the capital that have been given noticeably little attention by major media outlets, leading to the wave of attacks to be termed a “silent intifada.”
Netanyahu on Wednesday blamed Abbas for inciting the terrorist attack, after Abbas last week encouraged the ongoing violent riots at Judaism’s holiest site, the Temple Mount, calling for Jews to be blocked from the site “by all means.”