On Saturday afternoon a Hamas terrorist attempted to infiltrate into a Jewish community in Hebron while armed with an assault rifle. The terrorist opened fire at Jews from a Muslim cemetery near the community and was neutralized by responding IDF soldiers.
The terrorist has been identified as Sheikh Mahmoud Nofal, an imam in Hebron’s Al-Qassem Mosque, with suspected ties to Hamas.
Since the onset of Ramadan earlier this week, security forces in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria have been on high alert. Over 3,000 Israeli police officers were deployed in Jerusalem for the first Friday prayers of Ramadan, amidst fears of disturbances following Hamas’s call for Arab worshipers to barricade themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Arabs have barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the past on the Temple Mount during Ramadan, using explosives and rocks. Attempts to clear them out have often led to violence.
An estimated that 80,000 people took part in the observance and it ended without incident, according to police.
