Two women and two men were killed and six others were wounded.
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Gordon Robertson, CEO of Christian Broadcasting Network, which has a Jerusalem office, said on Thursday, “This latest terrorist attack is a direct result of incitement within the Palestinian community in the West Bank and points to the encouragement of violent anti-semitism by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction movement”.
Mohammed’s father, Ahmad Mahamra, said “Our conditions drove or motivated them to do these things”.
Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, did not claim responsibility for the attack but welcomed it nonetheless. “I yelled at people who didn’t understand what was happening to run”. One of the attackers shoots a man on the ground and waves a knife before running out.
Israeli soldiers argue with a Palestinian at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Nablus, Friday, June 10, 2016, after a Palestinian attempted a stabbing attack.
Escalating violence has killed at least 207 Palestinians, 28 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese since October.
The Israeli military body had already revoked travel permits for around 83,000 Palestinians in a move the United Nations said could amount to “collective punishment”. The shopping center stood adjacent to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, fueling speculation that the attack may have been inspired by the recent appointment of Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the right wing Yisrael Beiteinu party and illegal settler, to the position of Israeli Defense Minister.
The government also said it was sending two additional battalions – amounting to hundreds more troops – into the occupied West Bank. These were people drinking coffee in the heart of Tel Aviv.
Last Friday, France hosted an global meeting in Paris attended by more than two dozen Western and Arab countries to try to come up with a new strategy for Mideast peace and revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations which have been all but dead for two years.
This “will only increase the sense of injustice and frustration felt by Palestinians in this very tense time”, Zeid said.
U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner condemned the “horrific terrorist attack” in a statement, saying “cowardly attacks against innocent civilians can never be justified”.
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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said there was no justification for terrorism, “nor for the glorification of those who commit such heinous acts”.
