ist of terrorist attacks on Israel in 2008
January 1808Sderot ;Western Negev. In 72 hours, more than 120 Qassam rockets and 65 mortars were fired towards the Western Negev, an exceptionally high number. More than 8 Israelis are injured by the rocketattacks. Two rockets nearly missed a kindergarten, full with children. See List of Qassam rocket attacks[13]
January 2414West Bank. Two Palestinians infiltrated a religious seminary and stabbed 3 students in the West Bank settlement of Kfar Etzion before being shot dead. The same day, palestinian gunmen opened fire at Israelis outside the Shuafat refugee camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem, killing a border police officer and seriously wounding a female officer[17]
February 419Dimona. A Palestinian suicide bomber detonates an explosion belt in a shopping centre and kills one woman and injures nine other people. A second suicide bomber is hurt in the blast and shot to death by Israeli police before he could detonate his own belt.[30][31] See Dimona attack.
810Jerusalem. A Palestinian gunmen opened fire in the Mercaz HaRavyeshiva, one of the most prominent Jewish educational centres in Jerusalem killing 8 and injuring 10. Hamas praised the attack. See Mercaz HaRav shooting.[45]
Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian National Authority, stated "We condemn all attacks against civilians, be they Palestinian or Israeli."[35] However, the Palestinian National Authority daily newspaper, Al-Hayat al-Jadida, honored the shooter with the status of Shahid, meaning martyr. The paper also prominently placed a picture of the gunman on the front page, with the caption, "The Shahid Alaa Abu D'heim." In a front-page article on the killings, his act is again defined as a "Shahada achieving" action.[36]
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri stated that "This heroic attack in Jerusalem is a normal response to the crimes of the occupier and its murder of civilians".[37]
In a poll of taken two weeks afer the masacre, 84 percent Of Palestinians approved of the massacre. The pollster, Khalil Shikaki, said he was "shocked", and that "that result was the single highest support for an act of violence in his 15 years of polling here"[38].
Calling for a genocide of the Jews, Dr. Yunes al-Astal, a senior Hamas figure and member of the Palestinian parliament, said that he regards the slaughter at the Mercaz Ha'Rav yeshiva as a partial implementation of Allah's commandment to destroy the Jews.[39]
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