Jerusalem Arabs Rioting as Hamas Official Declares Third Intifada

Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahar declared a new Intifada on Saturday night, tying Arab rioting in Jerusalem to the Hamas.

“Escalating the resistance in the city is the solution to Israeli aggression, ” Zahar told the Hamas news agency.

Zahar attacked the new PA-Hamas technocrat unity government for it collaboration with Israel.

“The security coordination is a problem in that is suppresses the Intifada against Israeli aggression, ” al-Zahar said. “The people in the West Bank are fighting on two fronts: the first is the Israeli occupation and the second is the PA’s security forces.”

According to the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), terrorism in Jerusalem has risen from 22 incidents in May and June to 152 in July and August, Arutz Sheva reported. Israeli Police has made more than 600 terrorism-related arrests in Jerusalem since the end of the summer.

Science and Technology Minister Yaakov Perry (Yesh Atid), formerly the head of the Shin Bet, warned that the situation in Jerusalem is a “ticking time bomb” leading to a full-scale third Intifada.

Al-Zahar on Saturday bashed Israel for preventing entry of construction materials into Gaza, deliberately obstructing the Gaza’s rehabilitation process, and warned that this would lead things inside Gaza to “erupt.”

He then called on Palestinians in East Jerusalem to rise up against the Israeli occupation and continue “resisting.”

Meanwhile, Egypt has begun construction of an underground wall along the Egypt-Gaza Strip border, according to media reports. The wall, made of steel plates, will be 5.6 miles long and very deep. It is being built to prevent smuggling from Egypt to the Gaza Strip through the tunnels, a vital conduit for weapons and other goods entering the Gaza Strip.

Crethiplethi has reported that prospects for the construction of the wall are causing anxiety in Gaza, and some Gazans have already started to hoard food and raw materials.

Also on Saturday, Palestinian Authority Minister of Civil Affairs Hussein al-Sheikh told Ma’an that according to the UN, $5.4 billion pledged for Gaza reconstruction in the Cairo conference a week ago would be allocated under the supervision of the PA.