Four people were killed on Tuesday in Jerusalem, in the deadliest attack the city has seen in years. Police say it was yet another in a recent spate of lone-wolf attacks — and they have no idea how to stop them. Sheera Frenkel talked to the family and friends of one lone-wolf killer to find out why he did it.
An Israeli police officer near the scene of an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue Tuesday morning.
Ronen Zvulun / Reuters
JERUSALEM — On a street in Jerusalem's Old City Tuesday, teenagers waved hastily printed posters of the Abu Jamal cousins, who earlier in the day had killed four people praying in a Jerusalem synagogue.
"Who will be the next shaheed [martyr]?" asked one, pointing to a small pile of discarded posters in the corner of his uncle's grocery store. "We are coming."
Near the bottom of the pile was the poster for Mu'taz Hijazi, 32, who, on the night of Oct. 29, pulled out a gun and shot Israeli activist Yehuda Glick in one of the first of what Israeli police have described as a spate of "lone-wolf" attacks. In nearly all of the cases, the attackers have been killed at the scene, leaving no note or explanation for why they carried out the grisly murders. What they have in common is a familiarity for a site they attacked, and a sudden trigger that appeared to have set them off.
On Oct. 22, Abd al-Rahman Shaloudi was driving along a road he took nearly every day on his commute to work when he rammed his car onto a crowded train platform killing two people.
Nur a-Din Hashiya on Nov. 10 had just left a Tel Aviv construction site, where he had been working illegally for months when he stabbed and killed Israeli soldier Almog Shiloni, 20.
Hijazi had been working in the restaurant of the Menachem Begin Center in Jerusalem for months, helping to cater to the crowds that visited the museum.
On Tuesday morning, the deadliest attack to date was carried out by two Palestinian cousins from East Jerusalem, Ghassan and Oday Abu Jamal. Just after 7 a.m., as the Bnei Torah Kehilat Yaakov synaogue filled for morning prayers, they entered, using knives, a meat cleaver, and a pistol to kill four people and injure 13.
The killings have left many baffled. "We do not know what motivates these lone-wolf killers," said Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police. "We do not know why they act when they do, or what sets them off. They are very hard to prevent."
In East Jerusalem's Jabal Mukabar neighborhood, where the two cousins lived, opinions ranged for why they had carried out the attack.
"This was revenge. Blood for blood," said Ahmed Tahal, 20, a student in East Jerusalem. He, like many others, believed that a Palestinian bus driver found dead on Monday morning had been killed by Israeli settlers. An autopsy by Israeli officials found no foul play, and ruled the death a suicide.
But Muhaissin Farreek, 31, a local storekeeper, thought the cousins had simply been "inspired."
"We see these young men, carrying out attack after attack. Then they become martyrs, they are honored," said Farreerk. "They are not inspired by the Palestinian leadership; they are inspired by each other."
A photo of Mu'taz Hijazi, taken shortly after his release from prison.
Photo curtesy of Hijazi family.
But what drove Hijazi to want to kill? Family and friends describe him as a happy, but shy young man, who only recently celebrated his 32nd birthday.
In recent years, however, it had been hard for Hijazi to find work. At 18, he had been arrested and sentenced to six years in prison for sabotaging the electrical boxes of four homes owned by Jewish nationals in Jerusalem. His family said that while in prison he complained of mistreatment by the guards and his cellmates. Several years into his sentence, he used a sharpened can lid to attack one of his guards, earning him an extra five years in prison, much of which he spent in solitary confinement.
"When he was released we were worried he would be… unwell," Umm Suhaib, Hijazi's aunt, told BuzzFeed News. "But he was happy to be out of prison and did not want to talk about it, he wanted to move on."
She said that in the months following his release, he was offered little assistance or psychological counseling. "I don't know if it would have made a difference, but I think after 11 years he would have needed counseling," she said.
His neighbor and former classmate Ahmed Hussein said Hijazi was a "changed man" after his release. "He had always been quiet, but after prison he was almost afraid of people, of talking to people," said Hussein. "I tried to be friendly with him but he really just kept to himself."
Hussein recalled an evening several weeks ago, when he bumped into Hijazi one morning on his way to work.
"I asked him what he thought about the problems in Jerusalem and he shrugged, he said, 'Of course we must defend Al Aqsa,'" but he said it shy, like a young boy would.
Jerusalem and, specifically, its Al Aqsa Mosque Complex — as it is called by Muslims; to Jews it is known as the Temple Mount — was one of the few things Hijazi cared deeply about, said his aunt.
"He would pray, regularly. He was often unable to pray in [Al Aqsa] because the Israelis closed it and he would be upset," said his aunt. During periods of unrest, Israeli security forces often block the Al Aqsa Mosque compound to all males under the age of 50, citing security concerns. During the first and second Intifada, the mosque and its surrounding areas were at the heart of the Palestinian uprisings.
"One time, before his arrest and going to prison, Mu'taz [Hijazi] went to pray with other boys and could not enter Al Aqsa so he prayed nearby, in the neighborhood of Musrara," said Umm Suhaib, mentioning a neighborhood just outside Jerusalem's old city. "Soldiers were there and while he was praying one put his foot on his head. For a long time he would talk about that, it made him feel angry. It made him feel shame"
Hussein separately recalled the same story, saying that Hijazi was enraged that he could not pray at Al Aqsa, and that control of the area was often limited to Muslim men.
"It was something he was obsessed with," said Hussein.
