Eight months after two Palestinian terrorists killed four Yidden and a policeman at a Har Nof shul, Israeli security forces Wednesday sealed a home belonging to the family of one of the attackers.
A ruling last November by the High Court initially prevented the government from demolishing the homes of cousins Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal pending an appeal by their relatives and human rights groups.
But the appeal was unsuccessful and the presiding judge ruled that “the petitioners could not prove that the government’s decision [to seal off their houses] is disproportionate” to the crime they committed.
Thus the IDF was given the green light, and the home belonging to the family of Uday was cemented in early Wednesday morning in East Jerusalem’s Jabel Mukaber neighborhood. The action did not extend to the home of Ghassan.
The event proceeded without injury or incident. It was not immediately clear why the house was sealed rather than razed, although Channel 10 news speculated that cementing in homes is standard practice prior to demolition.
Armed with pistols and meat cleavers, the Abu Jamal cousins stormed a Har Nof shul last November, killing Rav Moshe Twersky, Rav Aryeh Kupinsky, Rav Kalman Levine and Rav Avraham Shmuel Goldberg. Zidan Saif, a policeman who rushed to the scene, was critically hurt by gunfire and later succumbed to his wounds, bringing the death toll to five.
The cousins were killed in a shootout with police.
{Matzav.com Israel}
