Police kill suspect in shooting of right-wing activist Yehuda Glick

 

The suspect has been named as Muataz Hijazi, a former Palestinian prisoner and Islamic militant. According to a police source, Hijazi was killed in a shootout with an elite Border Guard counter-terrorism unit (Yamam).

 

According to Palestinian sources, Hijazi was arrested for involvement in terrorist activities during the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2002 and was sentenced to ten years in prison. He was released in 2012.

 

Security forces are investigating whether Hijazi was the terrorist who shot IDF soldier Chen Schwartz near Jerusalem\’s Mount Scopus in July, on the same day in which a tractor attack took place in the city, during Operation Protective Edge. At the time, Hijazi had worked at a restaurant near the site of the attack and police believe he acted alone, and not with other movements.

 

Rabbi Yehuda Glick, a prominent right-wing activist, was shot at point blank range outside the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem on Wednesday night.

 

The gunman approached Glick and spoke to him in "heavy Arabic-accented Hebrew," according to Moshe Feiglin, a lawmaker with the Likud party.

  

Glick, 50, was shot in his upper body during an annual event organized by the Temple Mount and Eretz Yisrael Faithful Movement.

 

"Anti-terrorist police units surrounded a house in the Abu Tor neighbourhood to arrest a suspect in the attempted assassination of Yehuda Glick, immediately upon arrival they were shot at. They returned fire and shot and killed the suspect," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

 

Palestinian sources claim that police later arrested the suspect’s father and brother.

 

The Shin Bet said that "in an intensified operation by the Shin Bet, in cooperation with a unit of Yamam and Jerusalem police, the suspect involved in the attack, a 32-year-old Palestinian from Abu Tor, was located. During an arrest attempt, the suspect opened fire at the forces using a weapon that was in his possession. The forces returned fire, killing the suspect."

 

 

Hihazi had been employed at the Terasa restaurant in Jerusalem’s Begin Center, outside of which Glick was shot. A shift manager that spoke with Ynet said that he had let Hijazi go at 9:40 pm, half an hour before the shooting took place.

 

In an interview following his release from the Israeli prison, Hijazi said: “I’m glad to be back in Jerusalem. I hope to be a thorn in the Zionist plan of Judaizing Jerusalem. What makes me most happy is to return to Jerusalem, to Bait al-Maqdis, to be among my family and people.”