26-Sep-17: At Har Adar's entrance, an Arab-on-Israeli shooter with problems and a solution

The aftermath of today's killings outside Har Adar [Image Source: AFP]

Around 7:15 this morning (Tuesday), at the entrance to the north Jerusalem suburban community of Har Adar, a gunman - part of a milling crowd of Palestinian Arab laborers waiting to be allowed through the security check to start their day's work - opened fire on the Border Guard men at the barrier.

Three were killed, a fourth was critically injured and is fighting for his life at this hour in a Jerusalem hospital. The gunman was shot dead.

Times of Israel names the three murdered young Israeli men:

• Border Guard staff sergeant Solomon Gavriyah, 20, from Be’er Yaakov. He did his mandatory national service with the Border Guard and then continued with them, doing police work in the Jerusalem seam area along the 1947 armistice line that outsiders often refer to misleadingly as a border. He was lightly injured in the hand during a terror stabbing in the area a year ago. His funeral is now set for 5 pm today in Be’er Yaakov's military cemetery. His parents, two sisters and a brother survive him.
• Civilian security guard Youssef Ottman, 25, from the nearby Israel Arab town of Abu Ghosh. He will be buried there later today. Ottman is described as “a quiet guy who got along with everyone”, and the son of an established and successful family. He is survived by parents and siblings, including a sister who was married last week.
• Civilian security guard Or Arish, 25, from the Har Adar community itself. His funeral is at 4:30 this afternoon at Jerusalem's main cemetery in  Givat Shaul.

The fourth victim, not yet publicly named, is the community security officer for Har Adar, a man of 33. He underwent emergency surgery at Hadassah Medical Center hospital in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem from where his condition is described as stable and moderate.

Today's murdered Israelis (left to right): Arish, Gvariyah, Ottman
[Image Source]

The terrorist is identified [here] as Nimer Mahmoud Ahmad Jamal, a laborer with a history of family violence, from nearby Bayt Surik, an Arab village of about 4,000 residents. (Here's something we wrote some months ago about one of his nearby neighbours: "14-Dec-16: In Jerusalem's Old City this afternoon, an Arab-on-Israeli stabbing").

The troubles in his private life notwithstanding, the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security service, says he had no known background in terrorist activities. A father of four, he held a legal work permit making him one of few Palestinian Arabs holding such privileges to have committed a terror attack in recent years.

In its report on the terrorist killings, the New York Times today says the killer was well known in Har Adar. He was expected at the home of a member of the local council this morning where he had some work to do - cleaning work, according to Israel National News. NYT quotes residents of Har Adar telling Israel’s Galei Zahal Army Radio this morning that the attacker had had "personal problems", with his wife recently leaving him and going off to Jordan. Other sources mention she left the children behind with him. There's no word yet on where they are or who is caring for them. It clearly won't be their father.

One Har Adar resident quoted by Israel National News says

the terrorist was one of many PA workers who enter the town for work on a regular basis. “Every day, dozens of workers enter the community through the back gate. Some work inside the community in construction and housework for families, and others work on the outskirts. They undergo an inspection and body search, and there are good relations between the residents of Har Adar and the workers,” she said. “We know the terrorist, he worked as a cleaner at several houses in the community,” she added. “It’s scary to think what would have happened if he had succeeded in passing the checkpoint and gotten to the school that is several meters away, or to one of the houses nearby.”

The killer himself let those closest to him know what was coming:

In his final message to his wife, which was released after the attack by the Israeli army, Jamal, who had worked for years as a house cleaner in Har Adar, mourned her departure and said he had been a terrible husband to her. “When you wake up in the morning, share this message on my page. Let your conscience rest. You were a good wife, Umm Baha [mother of Baha], and a compassionate mother and I was the one who behaved badly,” he wrote... “I say this in full awareness: my wife had nothing to do with what will happen tomorrow.” ["Wife of Har Adar terrorist left him weeks before shooting", Times of Israel, September 26, 2017]

Though we can speculate, we don't really know what the dead shooter's problems were. But if all or some of them were economic, he and the loathsome PA leadership under president-for-life Mahmoud Abbas have just solved them. 

As Palestinian Media Watch observes in a bulletin a few hours ago and as we have written extensively (click "Rewards for Terror" to view dozens of our posts on this painful subject), the Palestinian Authority pays salaries to terrorists and to families of dead attackers - "martyrs" in their terminology - as part of an incentive scheme that ensures the blood keeps flowing.

According to PA regulations, the murderer's family will immediately receive a 6,000 shekel grant and an additional 2,600 shekels each month for life, based on the following formula:  

• 1,400 shekels each month - base allowance;
• 400 shekels additional each month for each wife;
• 200 shekels additional each month for each child.

This terrorist had one wife and four children so his family will receive 2,600 shekel every month for life.

The PA is perpetually broke, and always will be as long as there are foreign aid providers ready to respond to their malevolent pan-handling. The notorious PA Rewards for Terror scheme can only continue because of the willingness of the providers of foreign aid to pretend not to know about the payments scheme and its enabling role in the despicable culture of death the Abbas regime, and Arafat before him, stitched together to ensure the perpetuation of their people's misery and a steady stream of martyrs' funerals.