In the coastal town of Lod on Shabbat eve this Friday night, Arab gunfire reportedly wounded a five-year-old child as he was in a sukkah, the festive booth Jews are commanded to dwell in during the holiday of Sukkot – the same night a girl was shot in a sukkah north of Jerusalem.
Several gunshots were fired apparently by Arab assailants in Lod on Friday night, with one of them entering the balcony of the Shiloh family and hitting their five-year-old son Maoz, according to Yafit Haikin, a community leader and social worker in the coastal city.
The bullet caused a fracture to the young boy’s skull, and currently he is in intensive care following a complicated surgery.
“We aren’t prepared to live in a reality like this, and therefore we will go out in protest and read Psalms in front of the police station,” announced Haikin. “We must stop and demand the police to act and clear the city of illegal weapons.”
The protest began at 8:30 p.m. on Saturday night in front of the police station.
Tragically Maoz Shiloh was not the only Jewish child to be shot while in a sukkah during Shabbat.
According to reports, on Friday night a 16-year-old girl who slept in her family’s sukkah in Kokhav Ya’akov in the Binyamin region of Samaria was also shot.
She was wounded in the lower body, likely in her leg, as a result of a bullet which was fired from a nearby Arab village.
The girl was lightly wounded, and was evacuated by a Magen David Adom (MDA) ambulance to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.
Adding to the gunfire on sukkahs around Israel was an incident on Saturday night in Nof Tzion, located in eastern Jerusalem, in which an Arab terrorist shot through the wall of a sukkah. Fortunately no one was wounded in the attack.
Also on Saturday night a stabbing attack took place in the Old City of Jerusalem, in which two Israelis were murdered and two others wounded. The terrorist was shot dead in the attack.
The flurry of attacks comes after senior Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar earlier on Saturday called for Arab residents of Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to “mobilize” and “take up arms” in an open call for armed attacks against Jews.
כמה מאות מפגינים, רובם חברי הגרעין התורני בלוד קיימו הערב משמרת מחאה, בעקבות פציעתו של ילד מכדור תועה, במהלך חתונה ערבית בליל שבת.
התושבים הבהירו כי הם דורשים מהמשטרה לפעול ביתר שאת נגד ירי בחתונות שעלול לפגוע בחפים מפשע, ובעיקר להחמיר את המאבק לביעור הנשק הבלתי חוקי מתושביה הערביים של העיר.
ההפגנה בה השתתף באופן פעיל גם ראש העיר יאיר רביבו, לוותה בקריאות “דם יהודי אינו הפקר” ו”השטח בלוד בוער, משטרה להתעורר”.
ראש העיר אמר במהלך האירוע: “באתי לכאן להביע הזדהות, לחזק ולהתחזק מהציבור היקר, ולהגיד שמבחינתנו האירוע שהיה אתמול הוא חמור ביותר ולא נעבור עליו לסדר היום”.
“בכוונתי לדבר עם המפכ”ל המיועד, ולהגיד לו שהמשימה הראשונה היא איתור מצבורי הנשק הבלתי חוקיים שיש בעיר הזאת”, דברי רביבו.