25-May-20: Monday: Two Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attacks

Image Source: NYTimes

Ramadan, culminating in Eid al Fitr which was marked by Moslems on Saturday and Sunday, has ended and the head of the Palestinian Authority has notified the world that security co-operation with the Israelis is now ended.

There are signs that the Palestinian Arab street has taken note.

A report broke this morning around 10:30 am of a thwarted Arab-on-=Israeli stabbing attack. Eight Palestinian Arabs are reported [JNS] this morning to have approached a group of soldiers on patrol near Amichai, a small new Jewish community of some 200 inhabitants, first populated in early 2018 and located northeast of the Palestinian Arab administrative capital, Ramallah. 

Two of the Arabs, said to be residents of nearby al-Mughayyir village (Times of Israel said they were brothers), assaulted the soldiers attempting to injure them with what the IDF called “sharp agricultural instruments.” The soldiers fired back at the assailants, reportedly hitting them in the lower extremities and injuring them. They subsequently received medical attention at a hospital in Ramallah, according to the IDF. 

The Palestinian Authority’s WAFA news agency offered no details about the extent of their injuries. The Israeli soldiers suffered no injuris in the course of the attack.

Later today (Monday around 4:15 pm), an Arab said to be about 30 and armed with a box cuttter knife [pictured here] as well as tear gas (according to Times of Israel) charged at a Border Guard police officer on on Meir Necker Street in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood. The location of the attack close to Jabel Mukaber, an Arab quarter. The attacker was reportedly shouting “Allah Akbar” as he hurled himself on his target.

He was shot by other officers at the scene and according to JNS was being ttreat at Hadassah Ein Karem medical center where he was said to be in serious condition.

An Israeli police officer was injured in the attack.

22-Feb-20: In Jerusalem, two thwarted Arab-on-Israeli stabbings

Screen capture [Source]

Earlier today (Sabbath morning) around 11, a knife-wielding Arab male ran towards Israel Border Police officers on duty near the Lions Gate of Jerusalem's Old City.

Israel National News says the officers

called to the terrorist, asking him to stop, but he turned towards them instead. The officers fired at the terrorist, neutralizing him. He later died of his wounds.

A passer-by, a woman of 42, suffered a leg injury which, according to i24News, resulted from the shooting, and was taken to Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center for treatment. Haaretz says she was inadvertently hurt when the attacker was shot "probably by a ricochet of the bullet fired at the him".

Times of Israel quotes Israel's Channel 13 TV news naming the attacker as Maher Ibrahim Za’atara, 33. of East Jerusalem’s Jabel Mukaber neighborhood.

Security camera video footage [here and in Yisrael Medad's tweet below incorporating material for Israel Police] shows him clearly waving his knife as he rushes towards the scene of the attack. Not so surprisingly, his family, according to the Haaretz report, "say they don't accept the Israeli police's account of the events".

ttps://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-attacker-shot-dead-in-suspected-stabbing-attack-in-jerusalem-s-old-city-1.8564432

"Palestinian Shot Dead in Suspected Stabbing Attack in Jerusalem's Old City"

Suspected?

The video clip pic.twitter.com/RzVojJj39d

— ymedad (@ymedad) February 23, 2020

Aljazeera's report on the thwarted stabbing ["Israeli forces kill Palestinian in Jerusalem after alleged attack"] quotes the official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa saying "the man was shot several times and left on the ground bleeding near the Lions' Gate (also known as Bab al-Asbat) before Israeli paramedics arrived at the scene". Presumably the Israelis were supposed to do something else.

Image Source

A Palestinian Arab news source [here] has the thwarted attacker's picture and describes him as the father of three children. It also reports that "Israeli forces raided [the attacker's] home and detained his father and two of his brothers, Palestinian news agency WAFA reports."

Based on past experience, the orphans and widow of the attacker's family can now expect to have a well-funded life at the expense of the PA's program of financial incentives for terrorists and their heirs. The foreign taxpayers (mostly European) who keep providing misguided foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority are financing this, whether they want to or not.

Another terror attack was thwarted in Jerusalem yesterday (Friday).

By way of background, the promenade in Armon Hanatziv, a southern suburb of Jerusalem, offers one of the most impressive views of the city as a whole and in particular the Old City and the Temple Mount. That it attracts large numbers of visitors, both locals and tourists, every day is part of what also makes it a favored site for terror attacks by knife-wielding or vehicle-ramming assailants, intent on their moment of fame - and victims. In January 2017, an Arab resident of East Jerusalem aimed his truck at a group of IDF soldiers in the car park area of the promenade ["08-Jan-17: Where the World Council of Churches stands as Israelis are rammed to death"] and killed four of them.

Times of Israel says a woman attempted to stab passers-by at the popular promenade on Friday morning. Said to be a Palestinian Arab from East Jerusalem, she made several stabbing attempts with her knife while screaming Allahu Akbar (according to Ynet) before being wrestled to the ground by civilians. Police then took her into custody. One man was mildly injured by the assailant.

30-May-16: Barbarism, bigotry and blood-lust: What a UN-provided education delivers

Palestinian Arab girls being educated UN-style in an UNRWA school
in Jerusalem [Image Source]

If you have not already viewed the video clip we showcased in another post of ours ["30-May-16: Listen to the children to understand who is weaponizing them and how [Video]"] earlier today, doing that now may help you make sense of the report that now follows.

It was released for publication this morning (Monday) that Israel Police have cracked the stabbing attack that took place in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighbourhood on the evening of Remembrance Day, May 10, 2016. Here's part of what we wrote about that notably savage (even by the standards that apply in our part of the world) and cowardly attack three weeks ago:

The victims, according to Haaretz, are a pair of "elderly women", reported to be "aged in their 70s"who "had gone for a walk in the neighborhood, also known as East Talpiot, on Tuesday morning when they were attacked by two masked individuals." Their injuries would be serious enough for younger, more robust people but they sound quite worrying, knowing what we know of their ages: "One of the women sustained stab wounds to her limbs and upper body, while the other sustained wounds to her upper body." Ynet reports that they described their attackers as two masked Palestinians wearing jeans and black shirts. The two women, described by hospital staff in the Ynet report as aged 86 and 80, were walking with three other friends when they were attacked from behind. This is frequently how "resistance" operations are done, reflecting on the inherent courage required by such acts. [From our blog post "10-May-16: Practitioners of "resistance" inflict serious stabbing injuries on two elderly Jerusalem women"]

Those earlier suspicions were well-founded: the attackers now under arrest all live in Jabel Mukaber, a Palestinian Arab community with a well-deserved reputation for savagery, nestled in the southern suburbs of Jerusalem. All three of the arrestees are minors, aged 16-17. Children.

Ynet gives this background:

Jabel Mukaber as it appears in a Times of Israel article here

The three decided to meet at a small supermarket in Jabel Mukaber. Armed with knives and an ax which they took from their homes, the three proceeded in the direction of the promenade where they waited for their Jewish victims. A third suspect left the scene after becoming afraid that the attack would lead to the demolition of his parents’ home. As the women passed the two boys, they began stabbing them and striking them with the wooden handle of the ax. The two then fled the scene in the direction of their village while throwing and hiding their weapons on the way. One made it home and the other took refuge in his school...

Times of Israel adds:

After the attack,the suspects are believed to have stashed the weapons nearby before one went home and the second went to school. Later on, one of them returned to the scene, retrieved the knives and cudgel, and hid them in Jabel Mukaber... Throughout the day, the two suspects “spoke with one another through WhatsApp and Facebook messages and planned to carry out another stabbing attack in light of the ‘success’ of the Peace Forest attack,” the police said. However, the pair were arrested before they could carry out such an attack, a police spokesperson said.

And this small postscript:

During the investigation, it also emerged that the mother of one of the suspects was arrested one week ago [meaning after her son had been arrested for the Peace Forest attacks] for attempting to carry out a stabbing attack at the Zeitim Checkpoint at the entrance to Jerusalem... [Ynet]

What does it take to turn teenage Jerusalem Arabs into stabbers, plotters and would-be murderers? Of Jabel Mukaber and its predominantly-Jewish neighbours in Armon Hanatziv, an article a year and a half ago ("Arabs and Jews at odds in East Talpiot", Times of Israel, August 3, 2014) said this:

The main entrance to the neighborhood is adjacent to the Armon Hanatziv Promenade, the terraced park popular with locals and tourists for its views of the Old City, including Mount Zion, the Temple Mount, the Kidron Valley, the City of David and the Mount of Olives. Relations are generally good between the neighborhood residents and the villagers, say locals. The Arab residents are often visible in East Talpiot, shopping in the local Co-op supermarket, stopping in at the local bank branch and using the local medical clinics.

Since that time, a long list of terror attacks, including several mind-numbingly savage instances of extreme Arab-on-Israeli violence, have been executed by residents of Jabel Mukaber. They include the November 2014 attack on men at prayer in a Har Nof synagogue ["20-Nov-14: In the face of savagery, what do you do?"] in which four worshipers and a security guard were hacked to death. And, less than a year later ["13-Oct-15: A bloody day and the malevolence behind it"], the murders on a city bus of Haviv Haim, 78; Alon Govberg, 51; and Richard Lakin, 76. (Click here to view some other of our previous Jabel Mukaber terrorism posts.)

As the postscript above shows, another thing that can turn a teenager into a murderer is a mother who seeks to do the same herself.

But the major factor - the one that, year after year, delivers barbarism, bigotry and blood-lust directly into the veins of Arab children, the one that instills life-changing attitudes - is education.

Which is why we want to point out, in the wake of the Jabel Mukaber murder bust revealed this morning, that every single one of the sweet-faced Arab schoolchildren being educated in UNRWA schools and interviewed in the simply-shocking video we mentioned above, lives in Jerusalem where we do, and is educated here.

Mr Gunness, UNRWA spokesperson, on the right, from a YouTube posting
entitled "UNRWA's Chris Gunness Embarrasses
Himself on 'The Kelly File'", August 5, 2014

Not in Gaza. Not in Hebron or Jenin, but in the precincts of Israel's capital city, and by means of an annual budget provided by the United Nations and its UNRWA arm, of which a third is funded by taxpayers of the United States and most of the rest by Western, non-Arab countries.

Can nothing be done? Never say never.

We offered a practical suggestion not long ago, and urge our readers to look at it (again) now: "06-Aug-15: Educating their children: a modest, peace-focused proposal".

We sent it off last summer to UNRWA's official spokesperson and were pleased that he responded right away with what seemed like some politely mild, though appropriate, enthusiasm. Then, for reasons that are beyond us even now, he inexplicably went silent on us. If you're reading this, Chris Gunness, we hope you still plan to give us a call.

Holding our breaths, we're not.

03-Jan-16: Another day in an ongoing war

Hussein Dawabshe interviewed this week [Image Source]

A cold, rainy and somewhat gloomy January day, and terrorism has insinuated its way into the lives of Israelis in almost every part of the country. In no particular order:

• After Friday's murderous point-blank shooting attack on patrons (and staff) at a busy, central Tel Aviv drinking place on Friday afternoon [see our posts of Friday afternoon and Saturday night], the manhunt for Nashat Melhem continued all day today (Sunday). We happened to visit north Tel Aviv's Ibn Gabirol precinct this afternoon, and saw something we are accustomed to seeing regularly in Jerusalem, but rarely outside it: heavily armed rapid-response police riding in pairs on fast motor bikes. Ynet says security forces are patrolling the city in large numbers, "focusing on north Tel Aviv, where Melhem was last seen and where he is believed to still be hiding since the attack on Friday. They are still waiting for the terrorist to make a mistake, or for a "golden tip" that would lead them to him." There's concern the fugitive gunman will launch another attack: "Because of that, the Tel Aviv municipality decided to increase security across the city, particularly around education institutions, including Tel Aviv University. Despite that, many parents chose not to send their children to school. According to the municipality, in the north of the city only about 50 percent of the students came to school..." 
• Two men murdered in Friday's attack, Alon Bakal and Shimon Ruimi, were buried today. Thousands attended the two funerals in Carmiel and Ofakim. There remain about ten individuals who are still being treated for their injuries. A third victim has still not yet been definitively connected to the Friday terror attack, but tragically is as dead as the other two. He is Amin Shaban, a taxi driver and an Israeli Muslim Arab murdered in north Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon about an hour after the Dizengoff shootings. Two hundred of his family and friends, including his three widows and 11 children, gathered in Lod this afternoon to lay him to rest. Ynet quotes family members saying they still do not know whether his murder is connected to the Dizengoff attack. "There are a lot of rumors and the family is not being updated. There is still an attempt to see if the background is criminal, and that's bizarre because there's no chance".
• Around 4 this afternoon (Sunday) in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv ("Government House") precinct, a Palestinian Arab knife man launched a stabbing attack on a civilian waiting at a bus stop on Barazani Street. He pulled out his knife and managed to stab but failed (because the weapon became bent out of shape) to penetrate the skin of his intended victim, a person he, of course, did not know. He then fled in the direction of nearby Sur Baher, an Arab community. A Jerusalem Post report says security forces "launched a manhunt shortly after initial distress calls and apprehended a suspect who fits the description given by eyewitnesses". He was arrested.
• At about 2:00 this afternoon, a female soldier was struck and wounded in a sniper-fire shooting attack at a security checkpoint close to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. A search was conducted by Israeli security forces of the area. Haaretz says the shooter is believed to have fired from one of the adjoining Palestinian Arab residences: "A 20-year-old female Israeli soldier was moderately wounded... She was evacuated to Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem. Security forces are combing the area... Magen David Adom paramedic Hanoch Zalinger Siffer said... "She was shot in the lower body, and we provided medical treatment while evacuating her to the hospital", which we understand was Shaarei Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.
• Indictments were announced this morning for several Jewish males - some of them minors - accused of involvement in the firebombing of a residence in the Arab village of Duma ["31-Jul-15: In the wake of a lethal arson attack"]. This disturbing story is going to be with us for some time to come. For now, here is what Hussein Dawabsha, an elderly member of the clan whose daughter, son-in-law and grandson died in the fire on July 31, 2015, reportedly said in an interview today: "There is no law nor justice in Israel. It’s one big show... The Israeli court system, the State of Israel is a dark country. They will probably decide to put them in prison for several years and then release them. Instead of killing them like they killed my boy and my grandson... Those who burned my family should themselves be burned... Only an intifada will avenge the death of the Dawabsha family. They should continue with more attacks, having faith in Allah. Only in this way we will achieve our rights." We say that putting terrorists into prison and then releasing them a short time later is indeed a serious issue and a heavy, almost insurmountable, challenge to justice in this country. We suspect Grandfather Dawabsha is unaware that by far the majority of those walking free - like the more-than-a-thousand convicted terrorists, many of them murderers of Jewish Israelis, who were set loose in the Shalit Deal in 2011 - were, of course, Palestinian Arabs. And most of them have sickeningly murderous views similar to his.
• Grandfather Dawabsha's ugly threats contrast greatly with the messages issued in his name half a year ago in the immediate aftermath of the Duma village deaths. Here's what he is reported to have said in a Times of Israel interview published August 2, 2015 [here]: He had been a construction worker who helped build Chaim Sheba Medical Center, the vast Tel Aviv hospital where doctors are today working to save the life of his four-year-old grandson Ahmad. "My friends are Jews. I worked here, and helped build the buildings at the Sheba Medical Center where my relatives are now hospitalized... We want to live. Please join our prayer for their recovery — Jews and Arabs — so that my grandson will be the last victim of the terror war... We are simple people, who pursue and seek peace,.. We don’t want terror on either side, and we condemn it." For reasons which ought to be obvious, there's no reason to be surprised.
• A shooting attack in the Har Hevron area around 6 this evening has resulted in injuries to an Israeli male. Times of Israel says he is an IDF soldier; his injuries are believed to be non-life-threatening. No word on the shooter. Further details to come.
• Saturday night, shots were fired at vehicles traveling the Tunnel Road that connects Jerusalem with the Gush Etzion communities to its south, passing through and underneath hills on the south and east of Bethlehem. The section of Route 60 running to, through and from the tunnel was closed to traffic for some hours while security personnel sought the shooter, effectively isolating thousdands of households in Efrat, Alon Shvut and other sizable communities in the Gush Etzion area. Ynet says the sole victim of the shooting is a Palestinian Arab driver, whose injuries are not life-threatening. The shooter has not yet been apprehended.

Another day.

17-Oct-15: Bloody Saturday

Israel Police released this photo of Corporal M [Source]

The peace of the Jerusalem Sabbath - a glorious day of sunshine, warm breezes, calm in the air - has ended with sundown.

Now the realities of the world are back on the screen in front of us, and it's time to again address the ongoing war of terror being waged by the Palestinian Arabs and their backers.

Despite our prayers and hopes, it has again been a day filled with lethal violence - and Palestinian Arab children are at the heart of the barbarism.

• A female serving with the Border Police, identified only as Corporal M in a Ynet report, came under attack this morning by a knife-wielding Palestinian Arab female. The assault took place at the entrance to the Border Police base in Kiryat Arba where M was doing guard duty. The terrorist approached her and stabbed her. Despite suffering a wound to the hand, M shot the assailant dead. "The terrorist came to the guarding post and asked me to direct her to a certain street in the area. I told her I did not recognize the name and that she should ask the locals how to get there. All of a sudden she drew out a knife and tried to stab me in the neck. I took a step back and shot the terrorist without hesitating"... [Corporal M via Ynet] The attacker was later identified as Biyan Assila, age 16, of Hebron.
• About half an hour after the Kiryat Arba attack, another took place in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighbourhood. (The same area was in the news on Tuesday when two civilians were murdered there by a pair of Palestinian Arabs.) A Palestinian Arab teenage boy – who Times of Israel says had been stopped for routine questioning amid the current heightened tensions – pulled out a knife (a huge one - see picture) and attempted to stab the officers. They responded quickly and all escaped injury. The boy, later identified in the Palestinian Arab media as Muataz Awisat, 16, from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, died of his injuries.
• A little later in the day, yet another knife-equipped attacker, now identified as Fadel Muhammad Qawasmeh, 18, of Hebron, approached an Israeli civilian male returning from Sabbath morning prayers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs, pulled out a knife and lunged at him attempting to stab him. Israel National News says the Jewish man "managed to avoid injury, opening fire and killing the terrorist with his pistol." The attacker died of his injuries. Note that his surname sounds an extremely unpleasant tone among Israelis with a memory: Qawasmehs were at the heart of the searing murder of three Israeli teenage boys last year - see "30-Sep-14: Martyrs and monsters" (if this has been reported in the news, we are unaware of it).
• Also in Kiryat Arba today, an IDF soldier suffered moderate injuries to his upper body after a knifing attack at a security checkpoint. Other security personnel at the scene shot the attacker, leaving him seriously injured. Medics from Magen David Adom (MDA) gave initial emergency treatment to the soldier who was then rushed to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem for further treatment.
• Another stabbing attack was reported just a short time ago tonight (8:00 pm Israel time) in Kiryat Arba. Details to follow.
• At about 8:30 pm Saturday night, another knifing attack is reported at the north Jerusalem Qalandiya security checkpoint on a Border Guard officer. It’s reported that his security vest saved him serious injury. He managed to get off a shot, and the attacker is dead.

And on it goes.

We think it's terribly important that people notice how many of the attackers are children. Their weaponization by Palestinian Arab society - is a reality that some would prefer not to confront - including some of the darker corners of the news media:

Source: Aljazeera today: Finding new ways to bring the word "allegedly" into
the conflict