November 2014 Jerusalem Vehicular Attack

The November 5 attack took place against the backdrop of a significant escalation of violence in Jerusalem during the second half of 2014.[1] Jerusalem experienced an increase in violence compared with 2013, including two vehicular attacks against crowds of civilians.[2] An official annual summary grouped the November 5 incident with three major Jerusalem vehicular assaults during the same period, reporting that those attacks together killed six people.[1]

Tensions centered heavily on the Temple Mount and the al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Palestinian media and Hamas figures framed the violence in relation to alleged Israeli actions at the site, and Hamas figures Musheir al-Masri and Mahmoud al-Zahar publicly threatened further vehicular attacks.[3] On the day of the attack itself, masked rioters threw rocks and fireworks at Israeli security forces, after which police temporarily closed the Temple Mount to visitors — a closure that contributed to a diplomatic dispute with Jordan.[4]

The November 5 attack followed a similar incident on October 22, 2014, in which a Palestinian from eastern Jerusalem drove a car into a crowd at a Jerusalem light-rail station.[5] Together the two attacks were described as part of what some analysts called the "Jerusalem Intifada," a wave of violence including vehicular assaults, stabbings, and riots.[6] CAMERA attributed the broader political atmosphere to a campaign by Palestinian Authority leadership promoting the defense of the al-Aqsa compound.[7]

On the afternoon of November 5, 2014, Ibrahim al-Akary drove a commercial van into pedestrians and Border Police personnel at the Shimon Hatzadik light-rail station, near the corner of Bar Lev and Shimon Hatzadik streets and close to the Border Police headquarters on Route 1 in Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.[8] The van struck people waiting for the train, including several Border Police soldiers, before continuing along the light-rail tracks and striking vehicles and pedestrians further along the street.[3]

After the van came to a stop, al-Akary exited the vehicle carrying a large metal bar and attacked nearby police and security forces, injuring additional officers. Border Police at the scene shot and killed him.[9] According to testimony attributed to his wife, al-Akary had been watching live coverage of events at al-Aqsa Mosque, became agitated, left home, and shortly afterward carried out the attack.[10]

Al-Akary was identified as a 48-year-old resident of the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem and as a Hamas operative.[11][6] His brother, Mousa al-Akary, had served 19 years in an Israeli prison for participating in the 1992 kidnapping and murder of Border Police officer Nissim Toledano. He was released in 2011 as part of the prisoner exchange that secured the return of captured soldier Gilad Shalit.[9][12] Israeli officials believed Ibrahim al-Akary had been primarily radicalized by his brother.[9]

The immediate Israeli death toll was two. Border Police Superintendent Jedan Assad, a 38-year-old member of Israel's Druze community from the village of Beit Jann, was killed at the scene.[13] He left behind a three-year-old son and a wife who was five months pregnant with their next child.[9] Shalom Ba'adani, a 17-year-old yeshiva student who had been traveling toward the Western Wall, suffered critical head injuries in the attack and died two days later.[14]

Sources vary on the total number of people injured. Contemporary hospital reports recorded between 8 and 11 injured, while other summaries reported as many as 14 wounded, with several described as seriously hurt.[11][9] A subsequent official annual accounting also recorded a Palestinian Jerusalem resident who died from injuries approximately one month after the attack, producing a total of three fatalities attributed to the incident in that tally.[1]

Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack and called for a third intifada in Jerusalem.[8] Hamas spokesman Mushir al-Masri expressed support for the attack, while Islamic Jihad described it as "heroic" and framed it as a response to alleged Israeli actions at the al-Aqsa Mosque.[8] Sultan Abu al-Einein, a Fatah Central Committee member and adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, praised al-Akary on Facebook.[3]

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attributed the attack directly to Palestinian incitement, stating: "This attack was the direct result of the incitement of Abbas and his Hamas partners," and adding, "This front of hate wants to run over all of us."[4] The incident was listed among terrorist attacks in the Near East by the U.S. Department of Justice Office for Victims of Terrorism.[15]

Following al-Akary's funeral in the Shuafat refugee camp, participants shouted slogans including "Al-Akari, a shaheed hero" and "Keep killing soldiers." Rocks and Molotov cocktails were subsequently thrown at a military roadblock and Israeli security forces, and tires were burned in the area.[3]

In December 2015, Israeli forces demolished al-Akary's family home in the Shuafat refugee camp under an order of the Homefront Command, with police deployed to maintain security during the operation.[16]

The November 5 attack was characterized as the third vehicular terrorist attack in Jerusalem in recent months and the second in that period to target passengers waiting for the light rail.[3] It followed the October 22, 2014 light-rail attack by approximately two weeks and preceded the November 18, 2014 Har Nof synagogue massacre.[5][6]

The Israel Security Agency's 2014 annual summary classified the incident as a vehicular assault and grouped it with the broader cluster of Jerusalem attacks during the second half of that year, noting that these attacks together killed six people.[1] The summary characterized some non-firearms attacks carried out during the period, including vehicular assaults, as being executed by "lone wolves," though it did not explicitly apply that term to al-Akary specifically.[1] The attack was listed in the U.S. Department of Justice's record of Near East terrorist incidents[15] and referenced in the U.S. State Department's Country Reports on Terrorism for 2014.[2]

Several details of the attack are reported inconsistently across sources. Contemporary accounts placed the immediate Israeli death toll at two and reported between 8 and 14 injured.[11][9] The Israel Security Agency's later annual summary counted three fatalities by including a Palestinian Jerusalem resident who died of his injuries roughly a month after the event.[1] The attacker's surname also appears in variant transliterations, including al-Akary, al-Akari, and al-Akri.[3][10]

Hamas publicly claimed responsibility and described al-Akary as one of its operatives, but the cited material does not establish whether he acted under organizational direction or on personal initiative.[8][3] The claim that he was primarily radicalized by his imprisoned brother is attributed to Israeli officials rather than independently established.[9] Statements by Prime Minister Netanyahu and characterizations by CAMERA attributing the violence to specific Palestinian leadership incitement represent political assessments rather than uncontested findings.[4][7]