Jerusalem Councilman Arieh King revealed to Arutz Sheva on Tuesday that the two Arab terrorists from Jerusalem's Jabel Mukabar neighborhood who committed the lethal attack on a synagogue Tuesday morning were known to the security system.
Cousins Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal murdered four Jews praying at the synagogue in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighborhood and a police officer with hatchets, knives and guns before being killed in a gunfight with police.
"This family is very linked to terror and it didn't surprise anyone," reported King. "They live no more than 200 meters from the same lowly terrorist who committed the massacre at Merkaz Harav (yeshiva). This is a family connected to its very core and in its blood to terror, it isn't the first generation but rather the third generation of terrorists."
The Abu Jamal family responded to the attack by celebrating and passing out candy, with a cousin of the terrorists saying "we responded with shouts of joy when we received the news about their deaths." He called the attack "a normal thing that can be expected from every man who has courage and a feeling of belonging to his people and to Islam."
King remarked that it isn't clear why the Israel Security Agency (ISA or Shin Bet) doesn't have a database of the terrorists, saying "the question arises how the police and Shin Bet didn't get their hands on these scoundrels."
"We see terrorists employed in all sorts of places and no one knows, at the Begin Heritage Center the terrorist who shot Yehuda Glick was employed, also the terrorists today were employed in the area," said King.
As King noted, the terrorist who shot Temple Mount activist Glick was employed at a restaurant in the Center despite having spent 11 years in jail for terrorism, and one of the terrorists in the synagogue attack worked at a local grocery store next to the synagogue.
Speaking about the Abu Jamal terrorists, King added "they have a family member who sat in jail over the murder of Jews and went free in the embarrassing deal for Shalit; also the massacre at Merkaz (Haraz) was committed by a van driver of the Municipality."
King was recently dismissed from his Municipality coalition posts by Mayor Nir Barkat, after he opposed a controversial plan to build 2,500 Arab housing units in the Al-Sawahira Al-Gharbiyya neighborhood where there already are 3,000 illegal Arab housing units.
As a result, King notes that no one holds the Emergency and Security Committee portfolio that he previously held, and recommended to Barkat "to take it back."
"The situation here just gets more serious and no one is paying for it," King said regarding the lack of response. "Where is the responsibility of the Interior Security Minister and police captains? We haven't seen here a single captain paying the price for responsibility and getting dismissed."