The sound of gunfire resounded across Abu Tor – a mixed Jewish-Arab neighbourhood that sits on the seam line that formerly divided East and West Jerusalem – shortly before 6am, waking many residents.
Shortly after, a police helicopter flew to the area and hovered overhead while security forces shut access roads leading to the scene of the shooting.
Mr Hejazi's neighbours described being woken by gunfire as police swamped the hillside neighbourhood's narrow streets. Security forces were still firing tear gas and stun grenades into the cramped residential area more than two hours later.
The sounds of clashes could still be heard echoing around Abu Tor around noon on Thursday.
"I opened the door to look out and policeman shot me with a rubber bullet from just two meters away," said Mahdi Barkan, 33, a building worker living in house across the alley from Mr Hejazi. "Anyone who went to their door or windows was shot at. There were at least 200 soldiers."
On the roof of Mr Hejazi's house, a solar panel was riddled with bullets at the point where he was killed. Friends and relatives washed away the blood where he had fallen, while some showed what they said were remnants of his brain collected in a plastic bag.
Shayma'a Hejazi, 25, the dead man's sister, said her brother had been in his room when police arrived. "He tried to run away but they pursued him to the roof," she said. "Then they dropped a tank of water on the roof top. They are b*******. They beat him and killed him."
Taghreed Abu Isneineh, who said she was Mr Hejazi's aunt, said: "I witnessed everything. I was awake and looked out of my window at 5.30am and the soldiers aimed their guns at me. I saw Muataz's brother being captured by the police, who then dragged him away.
"I went outside to try and see what was happening but a policeman pulled me and beat me on my abdomen. The forces divided up, with some going into the house and others going onto the roof. Then we heard shooting on the roof top. Some of the neighbours who live higher up the hill said they saw somebody being killed on the roof."
Mr Hejazi spent 11 years in an Israeli jail but was released more than two years ago, according to family members. There were shouts of Allahu akbar from neighbours watching from nearby balconies as his body was brought from his home to a waiting ambulance.
Israeli media said he worked in a restaurant in Jerusalem's Menachem Begin Cultural Centre, where the shooting of Mr Glick took place. There was no confirmation of this from relatives.
Mr Glick, who was linked to the Temple Mount Faithful – a group aiming to rebuild the Jewish Temple – was a prominent campaigner for Jews to be given the right to pray on the Temple Mount, believed to have been the location of the two ancient temples but also sacred to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif [noble sanctuary].
He was said to be in a serious but stable condition on Thursday. The assassination attempt was the second attack in Jerusalem in eight days after a Palestinian motorist killed a baby and a 22-year-old woman by deliberately crashing his car into a city tram stop on October 22, according to police.
Security forces responded to the heightened tension by closing the disputed site to Jews and Muslims on Thursday, drawing criticism from Moshe Feiglin a Likud MP and close ally of Mr Glick, who witnessed Wednesday's shooting.
"The writing was on the wall, and still is on all possible walls," Mr Feiglin told a press conference outside the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif . "The surrender to Arab violence on the mount, the persecution of Jews, and the forbidding of prayer encourage the murderous violence to spill out of the mount to all parts of the land."
Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's defence minister, put the blame on Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority leader, who had urged Palestinians to use "all means" to stop "settlers" from praying in the area, as they are officially forbidden from doing under an agreement between Israel and Jordan. "When Abu Mazen [Mr Abbas] spreads lies and venom about the rights of Jews to worship in their land the result is terror, as we saw yesterday," he said.
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1wJ0XNM
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