08-Jan-16: Four more thwarted knife attackers, all from one town

Another Al-Shalaldeh "martyr" funeral in the same town of Sa'er
November 2015 [Image Source]

We posted here last night ["07-Jan-16: Thursday evening attempted terror attacks in Gush Etzion and Jerusalem"] about an attempt by a trio of Palestinian Arabs to carry out another Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attack at Gush Etzion Junction.

Now, via the Arab news media, we have some background on who those attackers were:

The three Palestinians were later identified as cousins Ahmad Salim Abd al-Majid Kawazba, Alaa Abed Muhammad Kawazba, and Muhannad Ziyad Kawazba, all from the town of Sair northeast of Hebron. [Ma'an News Agency, January 7, 2016]

All of them Kawazba clans-men. All from the same town. That same Arab media source goes on to refer to a separate stabbing attack, also last night, shortly after the one at Gush Etzion Junction, and the attacker again is from the same place:

[A]nother Palestinian from the same town, identified as 16-year-old Khalil Muhammad al-Shalaldah, was shot dead by Israeli forces after he allegedly attempted to carry out a stabbing attack at the Beit Einun junction northeast of Hebron. [Ma'an News Agency, January 7, 2016]

(Other members of the Al-Shalaldeh clan featured in the news during November 2015.)

The Kawazba clan and their town of Sa'ir/Sa'er/Sair/Sier, population about 18,000, appeared in an earlier post of ours just two days before: "05-Jan-16: In Gush Etzion, a Tuesday morning stabbing attack". There we noted that

Sair (or Sa'er or Sa'ir) is mentioned in the ancient biblical Book of Joshua (15:54) as ציער. The town today is considered a Hamas stronghold, like many of the communities in the area ("West Bank") nominally controlled by the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority.

In their tradition, one not widely shared by others, the town is also the site of the tomb of the Biblical figure Esau (about which Google provides some background for those who skipped Sunday school.)

Notice that in its Arabic-language report - though not in the English-language version - last night, the Ma'an News Agency article about the stabbers from Seir calls them "martyrs" [شهداء] in both the headline and the story itself.

That word is a key component in the escalating Palestinian Arab process of incitement and glorification of those who indiscriminately attack Israeli civilians and security personnel. It is rarely used in the Ma'an English-language edition, probably on grounds of being not so politically correct. Plainly, it colors Ma'an as part of the incitement frenzy that is currently setting the tone throughout the Palestinian Arab sphere. That's something Ma'an's European funders might be interested to know. (Or perhaps not.)

Hamas, according to this Arabic-language report, calls Seir "the citadel of the Jerusalem intifada". It has declared today, Friday, a day of rage in honor of the town's newest "martyrs" and their "pure blood".