24-Jan-16: Saturday storms and deaths

Palestinian Arab girl with knife: Her mother says she's
small and how could she stab anyone [Image Source: Security
camera footage from yesterday's attack]

Though the region is passing through a period of intense cold and stormy weather, and with snow on the way tonight in Jerusalem, the capacity of Palestinian Arab society to churn out mindless acts of self-destruction in the name of a profound hatred goes on undiminished.

Here's how Saturday looked.

At about 8 in the morning when the sun was still shining, though weakly, a Palestinian Arab child of 13 was killed after attempting to stab an Israeli security guard at the entrance to Anatot, better known to Hebrew speakers as Almon, on Jerusalem's northern periphery. The official statement issued by the Israel Police spokesperson and quoted by Haaretz, says laconically the girl fought with her family before leaving home with a knife. It names her as Rokya Abu Eid (Ma'an names her as Ruqayya Eid Abu Eid) and says her family previously lived in the Yatta refugee camp near Hebron, but are now living in the village of Anata (population: about 10,000). Haaretz says the girl "ran toward the security guard with a knife. The guard shot her, and paramedics pronounced her death shortly after..." The New York Times, under a headline that conveys the editors's skepticism ["Palestinian Girl With Knife Killed by Israeli Guard, Police Say"] says, quoting Israeli sources, that the girl

quarreled with her family on Saturday morning and then left her home with a knife “intending to die.” She arrived at the settlement about 8 a.m., the police said in a statement, and ran toward the civilian guard at the entrance, who opened fire. Grainy security camera footage from the scene appeared to show a girl with a knife in her hand chasing a guard... [New York Times, January 24, 2016]

A pity the "intending to die" part didn't get into the headline but the "girl with knife killed... police say" did. Note that a British source, Telegraph UK, says

Her mother, Reeda Abu Eid, said there had been no trouble before her daughter left the family home, a tent in the Palestinian village Anata... "Ruqayya is a small girl, how could she stab someone?"

How indeed.

Tragically, small girls and small boys have killed, injured and maimed dozens of innocent Israelis in the past four months of terror attacks ["01-Dec-15: The pride of Palestinian Arab society: Monstrous mothers, sacrificed children"].

Yatta happens to be where the not-so-large fifteen-year-old male child charged with murdering Dafna Meir ["18-Jan-16: Multiple Arab-on-Israeli attacks and a Jewish mother is murdered at her front door"] last week by plunging a knife into her head came from. Incidentally, while Haaretz makes no mention of Israeli casualties in yesterday's knifing attack by the 13 year old child, this Iranian news-source report says "Several Israeli soldiers sustained injuries in Saturday’s purported stabbing attack." This might be true, though it's unlikely the Israeli injured would have included IDF personnel.

In southern Israel, in the midst of freezing rain and bitter cold around 10:40 pm last night (Saturday), men with rockets inside the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip launched yet another of the many thousands of rockets in their possession in the general direction of anything Israeli. This was another notable failure, a Fell Short, meaning their missile failed to get even as far as the Gaza/Israel fence and exploded somewhere inside Gaza, perhaps on top of some hapless Gazan family's home or their heads. While there are currently no reports of Palestinian Arab deaths, injuries or property damage emanating from Gaza, it has been clear in the past that embarrassing casualties or damage to property resulting from Fell Shorts tend not to be reported.

From an Arab source, a reminder of the preparations for the next war that are a fundamental part of life for those Gazan Palestinian Arabs. Yet another tunnel collapsed in the southern end of the Gaza Strip during Saturday, west of Khan Younis. (The last one was just a week ago: "15-Jan-16: A tunnel collapses in Gaza".) The sole named casualty this time is described as a "Hamas-affiliated militant" Ahmad Ashour al-Najjar, 26. He died in the collapse of what Hamas calls a "resistance" tunnel. Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the name Hamas uses to refer to its terrorists, "confirmed in a statement that al-Najjar was a member of the group". Ma'an offers as background that

A number of Palestinians in Gaza have been killed in the vast tunnel networks that lie below the besieged enclave, which are largely used for smuggling in the coastal enclave's south and military purposes in the north. The Hamas movement which governs the strip is reportedly reconstructing a vast tunnel network intended to be used for carrying out attacks on Israeli military targets and civilians

In Abu Dis, on Jerusalem's northern margin, a Palestinian Arab male of 18 died when the explosive he was carrying went off. There's some doubt whether those explosives were strapped onto him and somehow exploded prematurely or whether he fell or slipped in trying to hurl the bomb at his target. In any event, no one other than the human bomb himself was hurt. His goal, it appears, was an assault on a manned IDF checkpoint at one of the entrances from East Jerusalem. The young dead man has a name, Muhammad Halbiya, according to one source; Nabil Halabiya, according to another. Haaretz says he will be buried this morning, to be followed by three days of public mourning. Whatever the matter to which he himself felt he was dedicating his life, his death plainly failed to achieve it.

Abu Dis has been in the news in recent weeks because of a bomb factory uncovered there by Israeli security ["24-Dec-15: Another terror outrage narrowly averted - and Shalit Deal releasees are again at the heart of the darkness"] and also because of a shooting attack on one of the security checkpoints in the area ["12-Jan-16: Tuesday terror attacks: one by shooting, one by knifing"], perhaps the same one as in yesterday's self-explosion, perhaps a different one.

No sign of the storm abating.