Rock-throwing Arab teens (file)
Rock-throwing Arab teens (file)Issam Rimawi/Flash90

Jerusalem prosecutors filed four indictments against individuals arrested for throwing rocks in Jerusalem over the Rosh Hashanah holiday. The four were aged 19, 18, 16, and 14, and the indictments were handed down for attacking Israelis with rocks, resisting arrest, and attempting to attack police, among other charges.

The incidents occurred on the Temple Mount, in the midst of the Arab rioting there over Rosh Hashanah, and in the area of Armon Hanatziv, as police attempted to hold back rioters from the Tsur Baher neighborhood.

One of the detainees, 19 year old Ahmed Razam, was spotted preparing to throw a rock at police on the Temple Mount. As police chased him, Razam put on a vest indicating that he was a member of the Red Crescent emergency services organization. Police arrested him anyway, leading him kicking and screaming to a nearby police station, as he cursed them in English and Arabic.

On Sunday, the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Arabs began rioting and attack Jewish visitors and police officers to the Temple Mount. The attacks continued throughout the holiday, and expanded to other parts of the city. The rioting led to the death of Alexander Levlovitz (64), who was killed on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, in an attack by Arab terrorists, after a rock slamming through his car's window made him lose control of the vehicle and crash.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu called an emergency meeting of the cabinet at the end of the holiday on Tuesday night to discuss plans to stem the unrest. On Sunday, Netanyahu said that security forces would respond much more harshly to rock attacks than they have in the past. “Rocks and firebombs are deadly weapons,” the Prime Minister said. “They kill and have killed, and so in recent days we have changed the rules for police officers opening fire in Jerusalem. Over the weekend they already used new means under the new regulations, and hit rock and firebomb terrorists. Today, we will allow a further expansion of the police officers’ abilities to thwart rock and firebomb terror, and we will continue to attack rioters... Whoever attacks us, we will attack you.

We cannot accept the principle that in Jerusalem our capital, or in any other part of the State of Israel, in the Galilee or in the Negev, people will organize nationalistic terror and will start throwing bombs at trucks on the road, or rocks that kill people,” he added. “We will determine minimum punishment for rock and firebomb terrorists.”

Prosecutors said that it was likely that further indictments would be issued.