JERUSALEM—Israeli police put up roadblocks around several Arab neighborhoods in Jerusalem Wednesday as part of a series of measures aimed at curbing the current round of terror attacks.
The first neighborhood cordoned off was Jebel Mukaber from which three residents emerged the day before to carry out terror attacks in Jerusalem that left three Israelis dead and some 15 wounded. Two of the three Palestinians were shot dead and one was seriously wounded.
The preventive steps were decided upon by the security cabinet in a meeting that lasted until the early hours of the morning Wednesday after two weeks of daily knife attacks, mostly in Jerusalem.
"Police are authorized to impose a closure on centers of friction and incitement in Jerusalem, in accordance with security considerations," said the cabinet decision.
The roadblocks are not intended to keep residents bottled up, said an Israeli official, but to check vehicles and individuals for hidden weapons. The official noted that some 80,000 Arab residents of East Jerusalem have permits to work in Israel.
The cabinet decided against imposing a closure on the West Bank, which has been the scene of widespread rioting during the past two weeks. Such a measure at this stage was seen as possibly fomenting further unrest.
One of the new measures seen by ministers as potentially the most effective was the decision to destroy the homes of those involved in terror activities within a few days of the terror act, so that the connection between the act and the consequence is clear.
"Someone who is thinking about carrying out a terror attack may be deterred if he knows that his family will be losing their home, and quickly", an official said.
In the past, destruction of terrorists’ homes could come years later, after a lengthy legal process. The cabinet said that the land on which the house stood would be expropriated by the state to prevent a new house being built on the site with money donated by terror organizations or Palestinian institutions, as in the past.
The cabinet also voted to seize the assets of terrorists and to deprive their families of "permanent residence" status. This status, granted to East Jerusalem Arabs after their half of the city was annexed by Israel following the 1967 Six Day War, allows for social welfare payments, health insurance, and other benefits that make residence in East Jerusalem highly desirable for Palestinians, compared to the entitlements granted by the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank.
The new measures will probably be challenged in Israel’s courts.
The cabinet accepted a proposal by Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan that the bodies of terrorists not be handed over to their families but buried at secret cemeteries elsewhere in the country.
"The families of terrorists turn their funerals into a demonstration of support for terrorism and incitement to murder," he said. "We must put an end to this."
Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon objected, saying "we should not play with bodies," according to Israel Radio.
The cabinet also decided to expand the police’s operational forces and to hire 300 security guards who will ride buses and local trams in Jerusalem as was done after the intifada that broke out in 2000. Several hundred soldiers will also be sent to police in Jerusalem and elsewhere for the duration of the current unrest.
The one terror-related incident reported Wednesday as of press time was the fatal shooting of a Palestinian said to have attacked a policeman with a knife at Damascus Gate, the main entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City. The policeman was not injured.
UPDATE 12:38 P.M.: In the evening, a terrorist on a street outside Jerusalem's main bus station stabbed a woman in her 70s as she was boarding a local bus. A nearby policeman pursued him and shot him dead. The woman was taken to hospital where her condition was described as moderate to serious.