JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israel’s Supreme Court suspended a demolition order for the home of the Palestinian who severely injured Temple Mount activist Yehuda Glick in an assassination attempt.
The panel of three Supreme Court judges on Wednesday asked the state to explain why the home of Mutaz Hijazi, located in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Abu Tor, should be demolished in light of the fact that the Hijazi family did not have prior knowledge of the attack, according to Israeli media reports.
Hijazi, a member of Islamic Jihad, was killed during a shootout with police near his home the morning after the Oct. 29 attack on Glick. Hijazi shot Glick at close range in the chest and abdomen before fleeing on a motorcycle. Immediately before he was shot, Glick had spoken at the Begin Center in Jerusalem on the Jewish right to pray on the Temple Mount.
The panel of judges also upheld demolition orders on the homes of two Palestinians who killed five Israelis in an attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem in November.
Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal, who lived in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, killed four rabbis, including two dual U.S.-Israeli citizens, and an Israeli police officer in an attack on the Bnei Torah Kehillat Yaakov synagogue in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem.
The Jerusalem residency of Ghassan’s wife and children was subsequently revoked, requiring them to leave Israeli territory and return to the West Bank. The family was also stripped of any financial benefits from the state.
The court also upheld the demolition order on the home of Mohamad Jabis, of the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, who on Aug. 4 overturned a bus and killed a pedestrian with a bulldozer.His family petitioned the court to cancel the demolition, saying the incident was an accident.
Israel began demolishing the homes of terrorists in November, following a spate of attacks on Israeli civilians, the reversal of a moratorium that began in 2005.
