This Ongoing War: A Blog: 03-Nov-16: Near Ofra, another young Palestinian Arab with a knife is shot dead trying to stab Israelis

Thursday, November 03, 2016

03-Nov-16: Near Ofra, another young Palestinian Arab with a knife is shot dead trying to stab Israelis

Today's attacker is stopped [Image Source]

We mentioned the Israeli community of Ofra this past weekend ["29-Oct-16: Knives, cars, guns: Israeli security thwarts weekend attacks"].

The quiet town of some 3,200 residents, located on Route 60 about 32 km north of Jerusalem, was the scene of two terrorist attacks a few hours apart. On Friday afternoon/early evening, a gunman opened fire in the community's general direction without doing any serious damage. Then during Friday night, a much more serious incident: a male Palestinian Arab driver of about 30 accelerated his vehicle into a group of IDF service personnel just outside Ofra, attempting to run them down. Failing to cause any injuries, he jumped out of the car brandishing a meat-cleaver and assaulted the soldiers, some of whom then shot him.

This afternoon (Thursday) around 3:00 pm, at a bus stop just outside Ofra again (Tzomet Ofra, or Ofra Junction), a young Palestinian Arab male armed with a knife approached a pair of IDF servicemen who were standing guard to protect the bus travelers waiting there. The soldiers responded by shooting at the attacker, killing him on the spot according to Times of Israel. The report quotes the PA Health Ministry which identified the attempted killer as Maan Nasser al-Din Abu Qara, 23, from Mazra’a al-Qibliya. A brief video clip [YouTube] of the attack's aftermath shows Abu Qara lying on the ground at the bus stop, apparently dead and with a knife beside his body.

A somewhat different emphasis characterizes the coverage in the Arab media. Ma'an News Agency's English-language reports says the young Palestinian Arab was killed

"after allegedly attempting to stab an Israeli soldier... Israeli medical teams did not treat him, leaving him to bleed to death. The Palestinian Ministry of Health identified the slain youth as Maen Nasser al-Din Abu Qaraa, 23, from the village of al-Mazraa al-Qibliyaa in the Ramallah district... Abu Qaraa is the 238th to be killed by an Israeli since the beginning of a wave of unrest across the occupied Palestinian territory and Israel in October 2015, the vast majority of whom were shot dead by Israeli forces."

The selective data of Ma'an's editors convey a message that hundreds of Palestinian Arab lives are now lost because Israelis shot them for some unspecified reason. In reality, the vast majority of the Palestinian Arabs killed by Israeli security personnel were killed in the course of Arab-on-Israeli stabbings, shootings and rammings - deeds that the PA's chief peace negotiator ["03-Nov-16: Saeb Erekat's heroes"] calls "worthy of aid, support and constant activity by us... acts of heroism..."

Ma'an's emphasis on the number of dead Arabs begs the question whether, if only there were more Israeli victims, the situation would somehow be more honorable and balanced. Heaven forbid.

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