SOLVEDListenOld City, Jerusalem · 2020s
2021 Jerusalem shooting
On 21 November 2021, a gunman opened fire on people heading to prayer in Jerusalem's Old City, killing tour guide Eliyahu Kay and wounding four others before being shot dead by police.
What happened
On the evening of 16 June 2017, a Palestinian man attacked a 23-year-old Israeli Border Police officer with a knife near the Old City of Jerusalem, fatally injuring her before he was shot dead by security forces. Moments later, in a separate location, two other Palestinian men armed with improvised "carlo" submachine guns opened fire on nearby police officers, injuring four before they too were shot and killed. The officer who was stabbed was identified as 23-year-old Hadas Malka; she died of her injuries in hospital.
The three attackers were identified as 18-year-old Adel Hasan Ahmad Ankoush, 18-year-old Baraa Ibrahim Salih Taha, and 19-year-old Osama Ahmad Dahdouh, all from the West Bank village of Deir Abu Mash'al near Ramallah. According to the Israeli army, at least two of the assailants had previously been jailed for throwing stones and firebombs and were believed to be part of a local militant cell.
The attack occurred during Ramadan, as the daily fast was ending, a period Israeli authorities have described as one of heightened alert for attacks. It followed two other deadly incidents in Jerusalem earlier in 2017: a truck-ramming attack on 8 January that killed four soldiers and injured 17 others, and a car-ramming attack on 6 April that killed an Israeli soldier.
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Palestinian militant groups PFLP and Hamas rejected this claim, asserting that the perpetrators were members of their own organizations. On 17 June, Israeli authorities said the attack remained under investigation and that no evidence had yet emerged to substantiate ISIL's involvement.
Reactions to the attack varied sharply. Fatah, the ruling faction of the Palestinian Authority, accused Israel of committing a war crime against "three Palestinian teens." The Israeli government responded by demanding that the Palestinian Authority condemn the attack. Hamas praised the attack as evidence of continuing Palestinian "revolution." United Nations Envoy Nickolay Mladenov condemned the stabbing and shooting as a terrorist act, stating he was "appalled" that some sought to characterize the attacks as "heroic."
The BBC's coverage of the attack drew criticism in Israel after it published a headline referring to "Three Palestinians killed after deadly stabbing in Jerusalem." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the framing biased for omitting that the three men were killed after fatally attacking an Israeli policewoman. The BBC subsequently revised the headline and issued an apology, acknowledging that its initial focus on the attackers rather than the victim had been inappropriate.
