18-Feb-16: A Palestinian Arab reminder this afternoon of what, in their eyes, children are good for

Time for people to better understand who provides
the knives, the encouragement and the inspiration
that is destroying the lives of  poorly-educated,
highly motivated Pal Arab youths

Not for the first time [refer back to December 2014 and November 2015], a branch of the Rami Levy supermarket chain, known for its open and welcoming approach to Palestinian Arabs on both sides of the shopping transaction, has become the scene of a violent Arab-on-Israeli terror attack.

First reports came around 4:45 pm this afternoon, near dusk. From Times of Israel in the past hour:

Two Israelis were wounded, one of them seriously, in a suspected terror stabbing in an industrial zone north of Jerusalem Thursday afternoon. The stabbing occurred in a supermarket belonging to the Rami Levy chain in the Sha’ar Binyamin industrial zone, located southeast of Ramallah in the West Bank. One of the victims, a 17-year-old, was said to be in moderate condition, while the second, 35, was in moderate-to-serious condition. Two Palestinian stabbers were shot by a civilian. They were reported to be in serious condition and were described by an eyewitness as “very young children.”

We don't know for sure at this stage whether that is true or not. We do note that the Palestinian Arab media are describing the attackers as aged 17 and 35. See Ma'an News Agency's report here. This is almost certainly wrong.

Ma'an News Agency, a Palestinian Arab source (screen shot). Note how old Ma'an,
but almost no one else, thinks the attackers are

In characteristic fashion, the Ma'an article spins some self-serving context by writing: "A wave of small-scale attacks carried out by Palestinian individuals in the occupied Palestinian territory -- predominantly on Israeli military targets -- have increasing targeting illegal settlements this month... International bodies have attempted to quell the ongoing violence through urging restraint by both Israeli and Palestinian leadership." Most of that is factually plain wrong including, we are fairly certain, the ages of the Arab attackers.

We know now [6:30 pm Thursday] that a 21-year-old Israeli is seriously wounded (now receiving emergency treatment at Shaarei Zedek in Jerusalem) and a 36-year-old Israeli is moderately injured (now in the emergency room at Hadassah). People who pray have been asked to have in mind the names of טובי׳ה ינאי בן אורלי and אברהם בן חמדה (Tuvia Yanai ben Orly, and Avraham Ben Hemda) for a Refuah Shleimah, a full recovery.

Haaretz says "The attackers were both are said to be alive and en route to an Israeli hospital."

The supermarket where this evening's attack was carried out [Image Source]

This seems a good time to point to the highly-political campaign being waged right now by supporters of Palestinian Arab terror in the social media under the hashtag @FreeAhmadManasrah. That name belongs to a child of 13 who was part of a two-child stabbing spree (along with a cousin a mere two years older who died in the effort) in Pisgat Ze'ev, a northern Jerusalem neighbourhood a few minutes drive from the scene of this afternoon's stabbing. We explored some of the issues in a post ["12-Nov-15: What about Palestinian Arab terror gives it that unique savagery?"] at the time.

Those behind that morality-deficient campaign to free the child (immediately) and to absurdly blame the Israelis for the freedom-limiting changes that have come over his life can legitimately be thought of as among the authors of today's knifings.

When those social activists and "human rights" protestors starting giving thought to the dozens of victims of child-enacted Palestinian Arab lethal violence - on both sides - we can start assessing their claims in different tones.

We can put numbers to the scale of the disaster. A report published yesterday [Ynet, February 17, 2016] based on data collected by the Shin Bet and the Israeli military, finds that about half of the 200+ perpetrators of terrorist attacks against Israelis in the past five months are under the age of 20, About ten percent are under the age of 16.

We are witnesses to a massive loss of moral compass in which children - as young as 11 - are encouraged by the instrumentalities of Palestinian Arab society to see stabbings, shootings, car rammings and bombings as acts of redemption, justified by a sense of feverishly-cultivated victimhood and sense of oppression, validated by the most powerful voices in Palestinian Arab society. The lethal incitement comes non-stop from (among others) the prime minister, the president, the religious establishment, the schools. Describing their society as being in the grip of a death cult seems a fair description to us.

Inside the store this evening [Social media source]

Back to this past hour's events, an attack during the week's busiest supermarket hours when Israeli families stock up for the upcoming Sabbath:

Paramedics treated the wounded at the scene of the attack and took the victims to Jerusalem hospitals. A large number of security forces were at the scene. An eyewitness identified as Uziel told Army Radio the supermarket was packed at the time of the attack. “I was in the middle of selecting vegetables inside when suddenly we heard screaming. Everyone immediately knew it was a terror attack.
“Within a matter of seconds soldiers and civilians with weapons rushed over…they shot the first terrorist and after 10 seconds or so they shot the second terrorist as well.”
[...A] military medic who was doing his shopping at the time ran over and gave the victims initial medical assistance. [The stabbers]  "both looked very young, children…everyone was in shock that these were kids — at least, they looked very young." The supermarket is located in an industrial zone frequented by Israeli settlers as well as Palestinian shoppers. Several attacks have taken place there in recent months... [Times of Israel]

UPDATE February 18, 2016 at 7:15 pm: Channel 10's correspondent Alon Ben David has tweeted that the attackers are aged 14 and 15, and one is now dead. Times of Israel says the knifers are children of 14 and 15 from the West Bank village of Beitunia, near Ramallah. Ma'an has now changed its report by deleting the bogus ages they quoted earlier, and that we screen-shot a few paragraphs above this. Times of Israel also reports that the younger of the two Israelis stabbed in the attack has now unfortunately succumbed to his wounds and died. His name is Tuvia Yanai Weissman.