Israeli toddler injured in Jerusalem arab stoning attack

2-year-old suffers head wound as car is pelted by an unknown assailant; attack comes amid rise in West Bank violence

A 2-year-old Israeli girl sustained a moderate head wound on Thursday evening when a rock was hurled at a vehicle in which she was traveling in Armon Hanatziv, a predominantly Jewish Jerusalem neighborhood just over the Green Line.

Paramedics rushed the toddler to Hadassah Hospital in the capital’s Ein Kerem neighborhood. Doctors said the child was in stable condition.

An initial report on Channel 2 said that the stone may have been thrown from the adjacent Arab neighborhood of Sur Baher.

Police launched an investigation into the incident and were searching the area for the perpetrator of the attack.

Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat called on authorities to crack down on a recent wave of stone throwing attacks in the city. “It’s about time we start treating a stone as a weapon,” he told Israel’s Channel 10 TV.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wished the girl a speedy recovery. “We will find these criminals and bring them to justice,” he said.

The incident comes amid a surge in the number and severity of violent attacks against Israelis on both sides of the Green Line in recent months.

Earlier in November, a couple driving along a road in the West Bank near the settlement of Tekoa were wounded, and their car was destroyed, in a Molotov cocktail attack.

In mid-November, a Palestinian teenager stabbed 19-year-old soldier Eden Atias multiple times in the neck, killing him as he slept in the adjacent seat on a bus at the central bus station in Afula.

The assailant, 16-year-old Hussein Rawarda, had entered Israel illegally in search of work and apparently decided to carry out the deadly attack after failing to be hired by an Israeli employer.

Slightly before the stabbing, former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said the Palestinians were ripe for a “third intifada.” However, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that recent attacks were isolated incidents, insisting that “there is no sign of a popular uprising.”

In March, three-year-old Adele Biton was critically injured when rocks were thrown at her mother’s car near the settlement of Ariel, causing a major accident. She was released from a Ra’anana hospital in July, after nearly two and a half months of treatment in the facility’s intensive care unit.

Times of Israel