BICOM

A 22-year-old woman yesterday became the second victim to die as a result of last week’s terror attack in Jerusalem, which saw a local Palestinian resident ram a car into a crowd of commuters.

Karen Yemima Mosquera, an Ecuadorian national, was a student who had been living in Israel for the past year and was in the process of converting to Judaism. She was buried on the Mount of Olives last night after her family were flown to Israel. Mosquera was one of a group of passengers waiting at a Jerusalem light railway station when Abed a-Rahman a-Shaludi ploughed his car into them. Three-month-old Haya Zissel Baron was also killed in the attack at the Ammunition Hill junction. The attacker was shot and killed as he attempted to escape the scene.

A-Shaludi, who had previously served a 16-month prison sentence for throwing Molotov cocktails at Jewish residents in the Silwan neighbourhood, was also buried last night. Israeli authorities restricted the number of mourners, fearing the funeral could become a flashpoint. Instead, rocks were thrown at police officers in Silwan, who were also attacked with Molotov cocktails in Beit Hanina. There were also disturbances in the neighbourhoods of A-Tur, Shuafat and Issawiya, with Israeli police making 20 arrests. Low-level violence has simmered in Jerusalem ever since major clashes occurred in July, in the wake of the murder of a 16-year-old local Palestinian in an act of revenge for the murder of three Israeli teenagers whose bodies were discovered the previous week.

At the start of his weekly cabinet meeting on Monday, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared, “We will not allow the reality in the city [Jerusalem] to become such that people lob stones, throw firebombs and disturb public order.” Last week, Netanyahu ordered that an additional Border Police company be deployed. In a separate incident on Friday near Ramallah, 14-year-old Orwah Hammad, a US-born Palestinian was killed in a clash with Israeli troops, who said they prevented him from hurling a firebomb.

Meanwhile officials in the Israeli Prime Minister’s office said Monday morning that planning would be advanced for 1,000 new apartments in the East Jerusalem neighbourhoods of Har Homa and Ramat Shlomo, though reports indicate this is early stage planning, and not an announcement of imminent construction.