Express & Star

The threat is right here – right now

It’s the world’s bloodiest square mile with regular terror threats and attacks. Pete Madeley journeys to Jerusalem’s Old City.

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A police officer attempts to keep the peace

Dressed from head-to-toe in black, with only her eyes visible, the woman walked slowly towards the gate to Jerusalem’s Old City.

She approached the security checkpoint, refusing to stop when told repeatedly to do so by armed police and continued heading towards the officers.

A warning shot was fired into the air, but still she continued along her path.

Within a split second one of the officers fired a shot, hitting the woman in the leg and sending her crashing to the ground.

Screams rang out as the area, teeming with tourists, was cordoned off and evacuated while officers rushed in to search the suspect.

It’s just another day in the heart of the sacred Old City, the most heavily policed square mile in the world where terror plots and stabbing attacks come thick and fast.

In this instance the woman had no weapons, and it later emerged that she was from an ultra religious Jewish sect that does not communicate with men.

Superintendent Micky Rosenfeld explains that her refusal to stop was considered ‘unacceptable’ and ‘suspicious’ by law enforcement.

Superintendent Micky Rosenfeld

“The officers didn’t know if she had any kind of explosive device underneath her clothes or whether she was armed with a weapon,” he says.

“It’s an example of how we have to react and how we have to respond.”

Since the incident, which happened six months ago, more female officers have been stationed at checkpoints, which offer the only ways to get inside the Old City.

Yet the shooting is a stark example of how keeping a lid on the potential threats in the area is a complex, 24-hour operation.

Israeli Police are frequently criticised in the international community for an approach that is perceived to be heavy handed, but according to Supt Rosenfeld, the force has little room to manoeuvre when it comes to dealing with potential terror threats.

If someone is considered to pose an immediate threat to life, they have a shoot to kill policy.

And he says Jerusalem is without doubt the ‘most sensitive and most significant’ district in the country for the police.

Palestinian protesters and Israeli border police deployed in Jerusalem old city alleys clash Credit: ATEF SAFADI/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock

It is a place where Arabs, Jews and Christians walk the same streets and live in neighbouring communities.

Its central area – the Old City – contains three of the most holy sites for three religions: the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Christianity), the Western Wall (Judaism), and the Temple Mount – home of the Aqsa Mosque (Islam).

“Because of this, if we had a terrorist attack here in Jerusalem on one of the holy sites, it would have repercussions not just here, but in the different Arab-Israeli communities, Palestinian communities, and in the wider Middle East,” says Supt Rosenfeld, surveilling the scene around him.

“It is quiet here now, but things can change within seconds.”

And change they regularly do.

In March a 32-year-old Israeli was stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist in the Old City, who was subsequently shot and killed by a police officer.

A 24-year-old Palestinian stabbed a security guard at the Jerusalem Central Bus Station in December, and two Israeli police officers were killed in a gun battle in July 2017 on the Temple Mount.

Two months of riots followed, stretching police resources to the limit.

It is not quite a return to the days of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, a bloody period of intensified Israeli–Palestinian violence, when suicide bombings were common and the bodies of Jews and Arabs piled up.

Supt Rosenfeld, a former counter terrorism combat officer who served with Israel’s equivalent of the SAS, says the death toll has been reduced due to the construction of the West Bank wall, dubbed a security fence against terrorists by Israel and an ‘apartheid wall’ by Palestinians.

However, since October 2015 the number of terrorists mounting attacks involving knives, guns and vehicles in Jerusalem is on the rise again.

Bloody – a knife used by a terrorist to stab a man to death in the Old City

More than 300 have taken place in and around the city since then, killing 44 Israelis.

A further surge in violence has occurred since Donald Trump announced his intention to move the US embassy to Jerusalem. When it opened in May, Israeli forces killed more than 50 Palestinians who were protesting along the border between Gaza and Israel.

In Jerusalem today, attacks are prevented by security forces almost on a daily basis.

Overnight police arrested and detained 12 potential terrorist suspects. And Supt Rosenfeld reveals that very morning he has received intel that a potential terrorist was heading towards the city in a car.

Police are attempting to find out his vehicle registration number, I’m told. He could have already made his way into Jerusalem and fled due to the amount of security, Supt Rosenfeld says, opening up the possibility that he may direct an attack elsewhere in the country.

The attacks can be co-ordinated by terrorist groups such as Hamas, but are increasingly carried out by lone wolf operatives.

Many of them travel from areas that are so close you can see them from the Old City. Eight terrorists have come from the Arab neighbourhood Ras Al-Amoud, a four-minute walk away from where we stand.

“Our units are also located inside the neighbourhoods to try and find suspicious activity,” says Supt Rosenfeld, 46, who was born in London.

“The threat is right here, not five hours away, so we have to be at the right place at the right time.”

Other units have been set up to track social media, where terror plots have been announced before being carried out.

The terror threat in Jerusalem is currently classified as ‘standard’, which appears to be something of a misnomer in an area where death can strike without notice.

The highest level is usually reserved for occasions where multiple terror attacks have occurred in two or more places simultaneously.

It is little wonder the level of security is so high – Israel spends around six per cent of GDP a year on defence.

In an area covering 1.1 square miles and including Jewish, Muslim, Armenian and Christian quarters, 650 police officers are deployed, around half of whom are undercover.

In the sprawling neighbourhoods outside the walled area, a further 3,500 officers patrol the streets. It means that around 14 per cent of Israel’s 30,000 police officers are operating in an area with a population of 850,000.

All of them are heavily armed and linked up to a central communications system alerting them to potential attacks.

A fire-ravaged bus

“It’s an area of intensive police activity,” Supt Rosenfeld says. “I think it is the most sensitive place in the world that a police officer can serve. The response from an officer has to be accurate. You can’t afford to make a mistake at the Western Wall, or open fire accidentally, or blow your cover when you shouldn’t blow your cover.”

While the blue uniformed Israeli National Police are the first to respond to any major incident, in the Old City there are also hundreds of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers, officers from border police units and plain clothes detectives.

It makes wandering around it a strangely oppressive experience. CCTV cameras are omnipresent. On the plaza above the Western Wall dozens of female soldiers on national service stand around chatting and taking selfies with their friends.

They look far too young to be packing the machine guns slung around their necks and pistols tucked into holsters on their waists.

Along the tight side streets a security guard takes a man to one side and searches his bag, before sending him on his way. Security is heightened near the entrance to the Temple Mount, where every passer-by is questioned and scrutinised.

Meanwhile, a little more than 60 miles south, a botched Israeli military operation inside Gaza leaves a high ranking special forces officer and six Palestinians dead.

The response from Hamas is to bombard Israeli towns along the border with more than 460 rockets, prompting a relentless series of Israeli airstrikes that hit 160 military targets inside Gaza.

It is the worst violence in the region since 2014, leading to huge political repercussions as the Israeli defence minister quits and the future of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government is called into question.

But on the streets of Jerusalem, life continues in relative normality.

In the market stalls along Mehane Yehuda, Arab salesmen tout their gear.

There’s T-shirts emblazoned with the motif of Israel’s national intelligence agency Mossad and posters declaring ‘Visit Palestine’.

I’m told that bright orange Jewish caps featuring the words ‘Trump: Make America Great Again!’ are a best seller.

Halal butchers chop huge chunks of camel meat, American and Chinese tourists try their hand at bartering over Eilat stone necklaces. The Mosque of Omar, with its fluorescent green lit minaret, opens for evening prayers.

All is quiet by the Western Wall, while inside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre a most unholy row breaks out between a group of women who are all old enough to know better as they queue up to enter the Chapel of the Angel.

But life here is never ‘normal’ for long.

Just a few days later a knife-wielding teenager climbs over the barrier to a police station in the east Jerusalem district of Armon Hanatziv and attacks a security guard before being shot.

A total of seven officers are injured, and the assailant, from the nearby Palestinian neighbourhood of Jabel Mukaber, later dies of his injuries.

There’s a ceasefire down in Gaza, but few people believe it will last long. And in Jerusalem, this most beautiful and enchanting city, the next deadly attack is already being planned.

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