Father of terror victim Hallel Yaffa: Rename Mugrabi Gate after my daughter
Amihai Ariel also asked the Israeli public to join him at the Temple Mount entrance on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m., to march up to the area together in his daughter’s memory.
By TOVAH LAZAROFFUpdated: JULY 8, 2016 03:05Hallel Yaffa Ariel (L) who was killed in a terrorist stabbing in Kiryat Arba on June 30, 2016 is pictured with her mother in a photograph from 2015(photo credit: COURTESY ADAM PROP)
The father of terrorism victim Hallel Yaffa Ariel, 13, called for the Mugrabi Gate and bridge that leads from the Western Wall plaza to the Temple Mount to be renamed for his daughter.Amihai Ariel also asked the Israeli public to join him at the Temple Mount entrance on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m., to march up to the area together in his daughter’s name.“I invite everyone to head up to the place of our Temple, in memory of Hallel and to call the Mugrabi Gate, the Hallel Gate,” Amihai said in a short video that was posted on You- Tube.The Ariel family ended its traditional seven-day mourning period on Thursday, after a Palestinian from the nearby village of Bani Naim, Muhammad Tarayrah, 17, infiltrated their home in the settlement of Kiryat Arba and killed Hallel while she was in bed.The family is among the founding members of the group Women for the Temple, which promotes visits by Jewish women to the compound, known to Muslims as al-Haram al-Sharif.The area is under the control of the Islamic Wakf trust and only Muslims are allowed to pray there, but non-Muslims are allowed to visit.The Ariel family is part of a Jewish movement that wants Jews to also be allowed to pray there.Amihai’s cousin is Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel who has called for Israeli sovereignty on the Temple Mount.Children from the Mark and Ariel families inviting the public to a march to Otniel on Sunday.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel had no plans to change the status quo on the Temple Mount.Palestinians and neighboring countries, including Jordan, have in the past accused Israel of doing so.
Such accusations have helped spark to the wave of violence over the last nine months which has claimed 40 lives.On Thursday after the mourning period was over, the Ariel family went to visit the family of Rabbi Michael Mark in Otniel.Mark was killed by Palestinian gunmen on Route 60 in the South Hebron Hills, one day after the terror attack that claimed Hallel’s life.