Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security assessment in Jerusalem prior to leaving for New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly, and ahead of the Jewish holy days in the Hebrew month of Tishrei.

Attending the meeting were Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, Israel Policy Deputy Inspector General Zohar Dvir, Jerusalem District Police Commander Yoram Halevy, the deputy Director of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency), an IDF representative and personnel from the National Security Council.

The prime minister ordered police to increase forces particularly in the Old City of Jerusalem and around the Temple Mount, underscoring that “determined action be taken against any attempt to violate order there,” according to his media adviser.

Netanyahu also requested that Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein take action to “continue to prevent parliamentarians and ministers from going up to the Temple Mount during this sensitive period,” his spokesperson said in a statement.

In addition, the prime minister “directed that activity be increased against Palestinian incitement on social networks, including expanded action vis-à-vis Facebook and other platforms, with the goal of removing inflammatory content. He also instructed that a response team be established to refute disinformation about Israeli policy on the Temple Mount.”

In addition, Netanyahu received an update on IDF operations and reinforcements along the roads and in the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria.

Barely a few hours prior to the meeting, a terrorist from the Palestinian Authority stabbed and seriously wounded an IDF reservist at a guard post in the Judean city of Efrat, only eight minutes south of Jerusalem. The terrorist had infiltrated the community late Saturday night, and dozens of IDF soldiers, reservists and local security response personnel had spent the entire night searching the city and surrounding fields to track him down.

The attack came on the heels of a series of terrorist stabbings of IDF soldiers and other attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria, at least three of which took place in Hebron. In response, the IDF beefed up its forces in the holy city next to Kiryat Arba, but other Jewish communities are still vulnerable.

On Friday afternoon barely an hour before the start of the Sabbath, an Arab couple from the nearby town of Bani Naim carried out a vehicle ramming attack at the Elias Junction entrance to Kiryat Arba on Highway 60, next to the Paz gas station, at the bus stop and hitchhiking post. IDF soldiers stationed at the site shot and killed the male terrorist and wounded the female attacker; but three Israeli teenagers were injured and suffered major trauma as well. All three were treated for their relatively minor physical wounds and the major shock they endured.

Within hours, the IDF surrounded and sealed off Bani Naim, which also was home to the teenage terrorist who climbed in the window of the Kiryat Arba home of 13-year-old Hallel Ariel, z’l, at the start of this summer and stabbed her to death while she slept in her bed.

It’s not known how long the closure will last. But Arab villages have been sealed off before, and when the curfew is lifted, terrorists are free to leave and kill Israelis again, inspired and financially remunerated for their efforts by the government of the Palestinian Authority.

The prime minister is clearly hoping that beefed up police at the Temple Mount and in the Old City will contain, if not entirely eliminate Arab terror attacks while he is meeting with President Barack Obama in New York, and addressing the United Nations General Assembly: a gathering that for the most part could care less these days whether Israelis live or die.

It’s Netanyahu’s unenviable job to remind them of why they should care, if only for their own survival — and Israel’s — and the last thing he wants or needs is trouble at home by Knesset members who take the opportunity while he is away to create “a distraction.”

A pizza parlor in the Old City of Jerusalem is running an election tip poll.

Trump seems to be a tiny bit ahead of Clinton, but the truth is, the tip jars were all pretty empty – could that be indicative that people don’t plan to vote? Or just that they don’t like leaving tips in pizza parlors?.

Thousands of people are expected to gather at the Western Wall in the Old City of Jerusalem at 7 pm this Thursday evening to mark the start of the Hebrew month of Av.

The “Sivuv Shearim” procession is intended to strengthen the Jewish connection to the site of the Holy Temple, the holiest site in the Jewish faith.

The procession, which makes its way around the gates of ancient Jerusalem, has taken place upon the eve of every month on the Jewish calendar over the past 14 years.

Men and women dance and sing their way around the gates in separate processions that fill the ancient alleyways of the various quarters of the city, until they complete the entire circuit.

Israeli Border Guard Police and other personnel secure the procession for the duration of the event.

A man was stabbed twice in the back, inside the “Kishle”, the police station located next to Yafo (Jaffa) Gate, inside the Old City of Jerusalem, according to a TPS report.

The man was taken to Sharei Tzedek hospital in serious condition.

At the moment, the police are saying the attack was criminal.

By Michael Bachner/TPS

Jerusalem (TPS) – Three Israeli-Arab residents of the Old City have been arrested by the Jerusalem Police and indicted in court for aiding a terrorist who committed a stabbing attack on May 2. According to the indictment, they housed the stabber in an apartment and attempted to help him escape without being caught.

The stabbing attack was committed by 18-year-old Muhannad Muhtaseb, a resident of Hebron who was staying in Jerusalem illegally. Muhtaseb stabbed and moderately wounded a 60-year-old ultra-Orthodox Jew who exited a yeshiva near the Muslim Quarter. A knife was found at the scene of the attack and Muhtaseb was located and arrested in an Old City apartment three hours later after a long and complicated search conducted by the police. He has also been indicted in court.

During the complex investigation, the evidence eventually pointed to the three Old City residents who aided the terrorist. According to the indictment filed against them, two of the defendants met Muhtaseb immediately after the attack and directed him towards Herod’s Gate to escape from the Old City.

When they saw the gate was blocked by policemen, they returned to the Muslim Quarter where one of the defendants told the terrorist that he would help him escape and let him into a residential complex to hide from the police and security cameras.

According to the indictment, the two other defendants arrived later at the complex, and one of them let Muhtaseb into his home. He let the terrorist wash off the stab victim’s blood, gave him clean clothes, and let him stay and hide.

When police forces arrived in the area, one of the suspects ran from the residential complex to the terrorist’s hiding place and warned him that they needed to flee. They transferred Muhtaseb to a nearby apartment, where he was eventually caught and arrested.

The indictment against the three men was filed on May 13 at the Jerusalem Magistrates Court, charging them of aiding a crime and disruption of court proceedings. The state prosecutor has requested that their remand be extended until the end of court proceedings against them.

Police in Jerusalem’s Old City noticed an Arab girl acting suspiciously on Wednesday evening. She was walking down the street holding a bag, but she was keeping her hand inside the bag, according to a police report.

The police carefully approached her, and when she realized she was being surrounded she tried to run.

The police arrested the 17-year-old girl, separating her from the bag and the large knife that she was holding inside the bag.

Thanks to the alert policemen a potential terror attack was foiled.

A 60-year-old Orthodox Jewish man attacked Monday night in Jerusalem by an 18-year-old Arab from the Palestinian Authority is slowly improving at Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

He ran towards the Lion’s Gate to seek help from the security force there after being stabbed in the back by the terrorist in one of the alleys in the Old City.

The man’s lungs were penetrated by the knife, according to hospital officials, requiring drainage as well as a blood transfusion.

He is listed in serious condition in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.

The stabber initially escaped after the attack but was caught hiding in a nearby basement a few hours later.