Destroyed Light Rail station in Jerusalem
Destroyed Light Rail station in JerusalemLight Rail Spokesperson

Terror attacks in Jerusalem have grown exponentially over the past few months, a Shabak (Israel Security Service) report Monday said. According to the statistics, three attempted terror attacks occurred in the city in March 2014 and in April, there were 7. In May and June, there were 22 attacks,  while in July and August, the Shabak reported that there were 152 attacks and incidents of terrorism in the city.

Among the incidents that took place in recent weeks were sniper fire at the Pisgat Ze'ev neighborhood in northern Jerusalem, the torching of Jewish vehicles, firebombs hurled at Jewish homes in Abu-Tor, adjacent to the Arab neighborhood of Jebel Mukaber, and numerous incidents of rock-throwing at light rail cars.

On Sunday night, one of the more serious incidents took place, with Arab rioters trying to blow up a gas station in the northeastern neighborhood of French Hill, adjacent to the Arab Shuafat neighborhood. It was only by way of a miracle that a massive explosion was averted, say Jerusalem Councilman Aryeh King.

"Muslim terror is raising its head in French Hill," King told Arutz Sheva on Monday. "A huge disaster was averted yesterday towards midnight, when no fewer than 40 Arab terrorists broke in to the French Hill gas station and tried to set off the fuel stores.”

Sunday's attack came on the background of the shooting of an Arab rioter in Jerusalem last week. The Arab was critically injured as police shot back at the rock-throwing Arab, and was pronounced dead at Hadassah Hospital during the weekend, sparking renewed rioting.

Surprisingly, the Shabak report said, there was much more violence in Jerusalem during the course of Operation Protective Edge than there was in Judea and Samaria. Police have tried to contain rioting incidents and to avoid friction and large numbers of officers entered neighborhoods where rioting was rampant, the report said.

The incidents do not seem to be directed by an organized group, the report said, and in fact most of them appear to be spontaneous. Although the data would seem to indicate that a third intifada is brewing, the report said that this was not the case. So far, more than 600 Palestinians have been arrested on charges related to rioting, and 200 indictments handed down.

Many of those arrests stemmed from incidents in which Arabs threw rocks at light rail trains, whose routes were planned specifically to go through Arab neighborhoods and give the residents equal access to Jerusalem's new and modern urban transportation .  

There were 90 rail injury incidents since the beginning of July, including the hurling of Molotov cocktails and stones. More than a third of the trains were damaged and shut down because of this. 

The incidents increased after the Jerusalem bulldozer attack in early August, in which a tractor driven by an Arab overturned a public bus, killing a father of five who was walking down the street at the time.  The bus was empty except for the driver and a policeman shot and killed the terrorist.