JERUSALEM - Israeli counterterrorism forces on Thursday morning shot and killed a Palestinian man in East Jerusalem who was suspected of involvement in Wednesday's assassination attempt against Yehuda Glick, a prominent Israeli-American activist who has agitated for more Jewish access to a hotly contested holy site.
Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the police, said a counterterrorism unit had surrounded a house in the Abu Tor neighborhood and was trying to make an arrest in the Glick shooting when shots were fired at the officers. The man was shot and killed immediately, Mr. Rosenfeld said.
The official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, identified the man who was killed as Mu'atez Hijazi and said he was released in 2012 from an Israeli prison.
For the first time in many years, the Israeli authorities closed the holy site to all - Muslim worshipers, Jewish visitors and tourists - until further notice to prevent unrest, Mr. Rosenfeld said.
The site, a sacred plateau revered by Jews as the Temple Mount, the site of ancient Jewish temples, and by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, the site of Al Aksa Mosque, has been the scene of increasingly fierce clashes between Muslim worshipers and protesters and the police in recent weeks.
Mr. Glick was shot and seriously wounded on Wednesday night as he left the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in the western part of the city by a lone assailant who fled on a motorcycle. A spokeswoman for the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, the Jerusalem hospital where Mr. Glick was taken, said Thursday that his condition was stable but still very serious and that he had four gunshot wounds to the chest, neck, stomach and arm.
Mr. Glick and his supporters had been attending a convention pushing for more Jewish access to the mount, which is administered by Muslim authorities. Palestinian leaders have protested the increasing Jewish presence on the mount, as Jewish activists and groups, often led by Mr. Glick, have made a point of visiting more frequently.
Abu Tor, a residential neighborhood that straddles the 1967 line between East and West Jerusalem, is split between predominantly Jewish and predominantly Arab sections. The eastern part of the neighborhood spills into Silwan, another focal point in the city located just outside the Old City walls, below the Temple Mount and in the shadow of Al Aksa Mosque.
Jewish settlers have recently acquired dozens of homes around an archaeological site there believed to be the ruins of the ancient City of David, and Palestinian residents frequently clash with police.
Last week, a Palestinian resident of Silwan plowed his car into a group of pedestrians at a light-rail station in northern Jerusalem, killing two, in what the police said was a deliberate attack. The driver, Abd al-Rahman al-Shaloudy, was shot and killed by a police officer at the scene.
The victims of that episode were a 3-month-old Israeli baby with American citizenship and a young woman from Ecuador. The driver's family said it believed he had accidentally lost control of the car, though footage from security cameras showed his car swerving off a main road and across the tracks, and then speeding along the narrow platform.
Entities 0 Name: Glick Count: 5 1 Name: Israeli Count: 3 2 Name: Palestinian Count: 3 3 Name: Muslim Count: 3 4 Name: JERUSALEM Count: 3 5 Name: Al Aksa Mosque Count: 2 6 Name: Silwan Count: 2 7 Name: Temple Mount Count: 2 8 Name: Rosenfeld Count: 2 9 Name: East Jerusalem Count: 1 10 Name: Old City Count: 1 11 Name: Ecuador Count: 1 12 Name: Arab Count: 1 13 Name: Abu Tor Count: 1 14 Name: Yehuda Glick Count: 1 15 Name: David Count: 1 16 Name: American Count: 1 17 Name: Abd al-Rahman al-Shaloudy Count: 1 18 Name: West Jerusalem Count: 1 19 Name: Menachem Begin Heritage Center Count: 1 20 Name: Mu'atez Hijazi Count: 1 21 Name: Micky Rosenfeld Count: 1 22 Name: Wafa Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1DycGz7 Title: Right-Wing Israeli Activist Wounded in Jerusalem Description: JERUSALEM - A prominent Israeli activist who advocates more Jewish access and rights at a hotly contested Jerusalem holy site was shot and seriously wounded by an unknown assailant on Wednesday night, according to the police, amid spiraling tensions and conflict over religious claims to the site.
