Bodies of Har Nof terrorists returned to families, buried in West Bank
A court order denied cousins Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal of Jabel Mukaber burial rights in Jerusalem, and only 40 people were permitted to attend their West Bank funerals.
By DANIEL K. EISENBUDPalestinians suspected of carrying out a terror attack at a Jerusalem synagogue on November, 18, 2014.(photo credit: PALESTINIAN MEDIA)
The government on Thursday returned the corpses of the two east Jerusalem terrorists who carried out November’s Har Nof synagogue carnage, resulting in the murder of five men and hospitalization of seven congregants.A court order denied cousins Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal, both of Jebl Mukaber, burial rights in Jerusalem, and only 40 people were permitted to attend their West Bank funerals in the village of Arab a-Saharra, Palestinian media reported.The Jamals stormed the Kehilat Bnei Torah synagogue on November 18 shortly after 7 a.m., wielding axes, knives and a pistol to attack over 30 congregants.The five fatalities included four Har Nof resident rabbis; Arye Kupinsky, 43; Avraham Shmuel Goldberg, 68; Kalman Ze’ev Levine, 55; Moshe Twersky, 59; and Druse Border Police officer Zidan Saif, 30, from Yanuh in the Galilee.Kupinsky, Levine and Twersky held dual US-Israeli citizenship, while Goldberg held dual British-Israeli nationality.Two days after the attack, a video posted by an Arab news organization showed the mother of Uday Abu Jamal praising her son and his cousin for the murders, Israel media reported.Shortly thereafter, Ghassan Abu Jamal’s wife, Nadia, and their three children were stripped of their state-sponsored health-care benefits after the Interior Ministry announced it would deport the killer’s family and demolish their home.Under the family reunification law, Nadia Jamal, a Palestinian, was allowed to live in Israel because her husband was a permanent resident.“Everyone who is involved in terrorism needs to take into account the effects it could have on family members as well,” Interior Minister Gilad Erdan said of the decision.The family has since appealed the demolition orders and Jamal plans to marry one of her husband’s five brothers so she can remain in Jerusalem, a family spokesman said this month.
