A PALESTINIAN man on Sunday succumbed to wounds he sustained in a car attack on a light rail station in East Jerusalem, his wife revealed.
Abd al-Karim Nafith Hamid, 60, was injured when a Palestinian slammed his car into the Sheikh Jarrah tram station, killing a Druze officer in the Israeli border police and injuring at least 13 other people, Hamid’s wife Umm Ibrahim said.
She said her husband suffered multiple fractures of the spine and feet, and subsequently had a heart attack.
Hamid did not receive the necessary medical treatment right away, Umm Ibrahim said.
‘After the Israeli forces identified the injured people, they handcuffed my injured husband because he is an Arab and didn’t offer him the appropriate treatment. Neither did they evacuate him to the hospital immediately.’
She said that according to eyewitnesses, Hamid arrived at Shaare Zedek Medical Centre handcuffed.
‘He has been in an intensive care room and he was given all the necessary surgeries, but he was declared dead today,’ Umm Ibrahim said.
Hamid left behind 12 children and two widows. His body was taken to the al-Maqasid hospital in Jerusalem and then to his home village of Anata east of Jerusalem. He will be buried at Bab al-Sahira cemetery in the Old City of Jerusalem.
On November 5, a Palestinian named Ibrahim al-Akkari, 47, drove a car at high speed into a group of pedestrians waiting at a light rail station in Sheikh Jarrah.
A Druze border policeman, 38-year-old Jadan Assad, was killed in the attack and at least 13 others were injured, two seriously.
Al-Akkari was shot dead after exiting the vehicle and trying to attack passersby with an iron rod, witnesses said.
The attack was the second time in recent weeks that a Palestinian had struck Israeli pedestrians with a vehicle while they were waiting at a Jerusalem light rail stop.
The incidents came amid rising anger and tensions in Jerusalem over the Israeli offensive on Gaza that left nearly 2,200 dead over the summer, as well as an arrest campaign in the city itself that left hundreds of Hamas-related individuals in prison.
Israeli troops on Sunday detained a young Palestinian woman who was suspected of attempting to attack soldiers at an Israeli military checkpoint east of Bethlehem, Hebrew-language media reported.
According to a report on the Israeli news site 0404, the Israeli army received information about a young Palestinian woman planning to attack troops at the Mazmoriya checkpoint near the village of al-Numan.
The checkpoint is on a bypass road which links Israeli settlements east of Bethlehem with the illegal settlement of Har Homa.
A man who was driving the car the young woman was in was also detained for interrogation, the report said. The report said a domestic-use gas canister was found in the car.
An Israeli army spokeswoman confirmed that a woman was arrested at the checkpoint, saying Israeli forces had received information that she was planning ‘some kind of attack’.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces detained 12 Palestinian fishermen off the coast of the northern Gaza Strip early on Sunday.
A researcher for the Gaza-based al-Mezan Centre For Human Rights said that Israeli naval forces detained fishermen from four boats near the al-Sudaniyya area.
Forces first detained Mahmoud Zayid and his brother Ahmad from Beit Lahiya. They then detained three more fishermen from Gaza City and later six more, the researcher said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Israeli gunboats confiscated the four fishing boats, taking them to an unknown destination.
The researcher said the arrests were the largest ‘detention campaign’ against Gaza fishermen since a ceasefire between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces was announced.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said that over the course of the night, five fishing boats were apprehended after veering from the permitted fishing zone. Twelve fishermen were arrested, the spokeswoman said.
A ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Palestinian militant groups in Gaza on August 26 stipulated that Israel would ease its blockade on the Strip and lighten restrictions on fishermen.
Since the agreement, Israeli forces have opened fire regularly at Gaza fishermen, saying they have veered outside the ‘designated fishing zone’ which ends six nautical miles from shore.
Prior to the recent agreement, Israeli forces maintained a limit of three nautical miles on all Gaza fishermen, opening fire at fishermen who strayed further, despite earlier agreements which had settled on a 20-mile limit. The restrictions crippled Gaza’s fishing industry and impoverished local fishermen.
• A Palestinian worker from the Nablus district was killed in Israel on Saturday when unidentified gunmen opened fire at him, a local official said.
Kathem Ramadan Sami Odeh, 25, was killed when three unidentified gunmen attacked a workers’ apartment in the town of Qalansuwa in the triangle region, the head of the Odeh’s hometown village said.
Abd al-Azim al-Wadiya, the head of the village council of Qusra in the Nablus district, said two bullets hit Odeh in the stomach and one hit him in the neck.
Other workers in the apartment at the time managed to escape, after being ‘assaulted’ by the gunmen, al-Wadiya said, without providing further details.
The motives behind the shooting remain unclear. Odeh’s body is being held in the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, where an autopsy will take place, al-Wadiya said.
• The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) on Saturday celebrated its 47th anniversary in a public festival in al-Bireh.
More than 1,000 people took part in the festival, marching in the streets of Ramallah and holding up Palestinian and PFLP flags.
PFLP leaders, PLO Executive Committee members, and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council attended the event.
The leftist Palestinian movement called for Palestinian unity and an end to political division in the Gaza Strip. PFLP leader Khalida Jarrar urged Palestinian officials to bring the Palestinian case to the UN.
Fatah Central Committee member Mahmoud al-Alul said during a speech at the event that the PFLP had made an effective contribution to the Palestinian cause.
Earlier on Saturday, the PFLP said in a statement that the deterioration of humanitarian life in Gaza could not continue.
The movement called on the Palestinian unity government to carry out its responsibilities for the good of Palestinians in the Strip.
It urged the Fatah and Hamas movements to prioritize the national good, the people and their rights, above their political disagreements.
The PFLP also called for pressure on Israel to end its blockade on Gaza and to open border crossings, saying the siege was the main reason for the humanitarian situation in the Strip.
It also called upon President Mahmoud Abbas to coordinate with Egypt to open the Rafah crossing.
The PFLP, a leftist political faction, was founded in 1967 by Palestinian Christian George Habash.
The group became well known for its aircraft hijackings in the 1960s and ’70s. Its military wing, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, has played an active role in armed conflicts with Israeli forces, most recently in Israel’s 50-day offensive on Gaza this summer.
