23-Nov-20: Four Arab-on-Israeli terror attempts; close to zero media attention

Qalandiya Crossing, the pedestrian part - seen in a 2019 photo
[Image Source]

No one was hurt. But that was surely not the intention of the perpetrators behind four terror attacks directed against Israelis in the past few days. 

In four separate attempts this past weekend, terrorists sought to carry out lethal attacks directed at Israelis targeted at random. 

Two happened on the edges of the capital, Jerusalem, a third in the country's south and the fourth in the Samaria District. None of them individually got much attention, and we don't see any media saying that four in the space of a single weekend means something.

It's reported ["Explosives placed by terrorists near Jerusalem over weekend" | Jerusalem Post. November 22, 2020] that at the Qalandiya Crossing on Jerusalem's north-eastern entrance, two explosive packages were concealed Friday night close to where vehicles drive through. One exploded but failed to cause injury or damage. Witnesses spotted two suspects arriving at the crossing, placing the explosives and fleeing from the scene. A chase ensued with Border Police eventually arresting two under-age suspects in a nearby convenience store. This Arab source names them as Khaled Salim and Ismail Abu Zaidiya, both residents of the Qalandiya "refugee camp".

It didn't end there. In taking the prisoners away, the security people were confronted by dozens of Palestinian Arabs hurling rocks at them. Riot dispersal measures were used and the melee - which could easily have become the story - ended with no injuries.

The second attempt, on Friday night at the ancient Rachel's Tomb near Bethlehem, was thwarted when a lookout spotted a suspect placing an explosive close to the walled complex and running away from the scene. He was pursued by Border Police who caught up with him and placed him under arrest. He is an 18-year-old male from a so-called refugee camp in the Bethlehem area. His explosive failed to detonate.

IDF forces apprehending a terror suspect this past weekend.
No one was hurt which - being Israelis - was the intention.
[Image Source]

A media release quoted in the Jerusalem Post report says "Border Police are working in the Jerusalem Envelope area to strengthen deterrence and thwart terrorism while increasing the deployment of forces in sensitive places where there have been recent attempts to harm civilians and security forces."

Then Saturday night around 9:30 pm, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel set off the Tzeva Adom (Color Red) missile attack sirens in the southern coastal city of Ashkelon, according to a Ynet report. The resulting explosion caused damage to a warehouse in an industrial zone of the city. But fortunately no injuries - and to state the obvious (whenever missiles are fired into cities by malevolents totally indifferent to outcomes) this could have been a far more troubling event.

Then on Sunday morning in a third hidden explosives incident reported by Jerusalem Post - making it the fourth terror event of this weekend - IDF combat soldiers carrying out routine searches uncovered camouflaged explosives placed just outside the village of al-Mughayyir, south of Jenin. The military assessment is the intention of those who planted the explosives was to harm Israeli soldiers.

Seems a good time to mention that, for the Palestinian Authority, "...rewarding terrorists is not about social welfare. It is about incentivizing and rewarding terror and murder. “Pay for slay” is an abomination that should enjoy universal condemnation." Those sentiments, which are easy to agree with, come from "Lies, damn lies and Palestinian Authority’s ‘pay for slay’ policy", an op ed published by Jewish News Syndicate four days ago. It's authored by Maurice Hirsch who served in past years as director of the IDF Military Prosecution for Judea and Samaria. 

He's the kind of hands-on expert who can be expected to have some well-founded sense of what foreign aid funding achieves once it's handed over to the terror-addicted kleptocrats of the PA.

As it happens, Yossi Kuperwasser of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a former Director General of the Israel Ministry of Strategic Affairs and past head of the Research Division of IDF Military Intelligence, released a brief the same day as the Hirsch piece. It's called "Will the Palestinian Authority Stop Paying Terrorists? End the “Pay to Slay” Program?" and he leaves readers with the impression that no they won't. 

With predictable consequences.

01-Mar-18: Rachel's Tomb: Yet another Pal Arab female teen with a knife

The concrete walls that today secure ancient Rachel's Tomb [Image Source]

There was another of those utterly pointless attempts around the middle of this morning (according to this Hebrew social media report) to harm Israeli security personnel. Once again this was by (a) a teenage (b) female (c) Arab (d) attacker armed with a knife. The armed assault was fortunately thwarted, the attacker is in the hands of the Israeli security forces for interrogation and no one was injured.

Today's failed attack took place at the Rachel Crossing on the northern edge of Bethlehem. The ancient tomb of the Jewish matriarch Rachel used to be, 25 years ago when we last visited it, just an historical site on the road leading from Bethlehem to southern Jerusalem. 

Then after a series of shooting attacks on Jewish worshipers, the simple tomb became a complex surrounded by thick, high walls and with secure stations for the IDF personnel who do guard duty there. It's a major attraction:

Judaism's third-holiest site, has been the scene of prayer and pilgrimage for more than three thousand years... Rachel, the beloved wife of the third Patriarch, Ya'acov (Jacob), died in childbirth on the way to Hebron returning to his family's home... She was buried on the road to Efrat -- now Bethlehem....
Ya'acov buried Rachel at this spot, rather than a the family burial plot at the Cave [Tomb] of the Patriarchs in Hebron, because he foresaw that his decedents would pass this site during the the forced exile to Babylon in the year 423 BCE [Source: RachelsTomb.org]

Why the IDF places security personnel there, day after day, was brought home again today:  

Female terrorist arrested near Bethlehem | A female Arab terrorist aged 18, a resident of Bethlehem, arrived Thursday morning at the Rachel Crossing near the city, and threatened to attack policemen and soldiers stationed there. Border Police officers subdued the terrorist and found a knife in her bag. She was arrested and taken for questioning... [Israel National News, today]

The Jordanian version raises doubts:

Palestinian girl arrested for alleged stabbing attempt | Ramallah, March. 1 (Petra) -- Israeli occupation forces arrested an 18-year old Palestinian girl for allegedly trying to stab Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint north of the West Bank city of Bethlehem, Radio Israel said on Thursday. The radio said that Israeli troops at the military checkpoint arrested a girl, whose identity wasn't disclosed, for allegedly attempting to attack Israeli soldiers with a knife. [Jordan News Agency/MENAFN, today]

Family and friends outside Rachel's Tomb in 1991 when access was
directly from the Jerusalem/Bethlehem road. The massive
security walls hadn't been constructed and weren't needed

The scurrilous Ma'an/Palestinian Arab version is even more doubtful - but it's their standard pose:

BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces detained an 18-year-old Palestinian girl for allegedly attempting to stab soldiers at Checkpoint 300 in northern Bethlehem city on Thursday, in the southern occupied West Bank. Israeli media reported that soldiers at the checkpoint detained a Palestinian teenage girl who was “carrying a knife and attempted to attack soldiers.” The girl was reportedly taken in for questioning. Though her identity remained unknown, the girl was reported to be a resident of Bethlehem city. Israeli forces have detained scores of Palestinians, many of the minors, for allegedly being in possession of knives following a spate of alleged and actual small-scale knife attacks by Palestinians that surged in the fall of 2015. [Ma'an News Agency, today]

Depending on decisions to be taken by the IDF and the military prosecution, this young woman may qualify under the PA's Rewards for Terror scheme with monetary benefits flowing to her and her parents, so there's that.

28-Jun-17: The obscene ordinariness of another woman with a knife at an Israeli checkpoint

Image Source

Reported this afternoon (Wednesday):

A Palestinian woman is caught with a knife at a checkpoint near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. According to reports, the 36-year-old tells security forces that she planned to carry out a stabbing attack in Jerusalem. The suspect is taken in for questioning. [Times of Israel, June 28, 2017]

Ynet adds the detail in its report [here] that the would-be assailant was apprehended somewhere close to the ancient Tomb of Rachel. And in the Hebrew social media, this report says the woman is from Yatta, a large and troubled town with a population of about 65,000. It was in the news last year ["09-Jun-16: The Tel Aviv killings: Hamas claims credit but Fatah/PA demands some of the glory too"] in connection with the murderous activities of two of its young residents, and their ties to Hamas.

In the social media, there's a photo of the knife in her possession - the one she says she intended to use in this thwarted Arab-on-Israeli attack. We copied it above.

Among Israelis, it's commonly thought that a significant number of the families and clans of Yatta - in common with several other notable cities and towns in the areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority - have Jewish origins. Yatta was a noted Jewish settlement, described as such in documents dating back to the 5th century.

There's something about today's Palestinian Arab culture that not only makes it an ordinary detail of the daily news that a woman was found carrying a lethal knife but that she readily (as far as we can tell) confessed.

Could the PA's notorious Rewards for Terror financial program have any connection to this depravity?

07-Mar-17: Arab-on-Israeli stabbing at Jerusalem's main southern entry point today

We're hearing reports of an Arab-on-Israeli stabbing near the Tunnel Road security checkpoint around 11:15 this morning (Tuesday).

Israel National News says the victim is a man in his 40s, evidently an Israeli, and the alleged attacker is "reportedly an Arab resident of the Palestinian Authority". Police are still investigating what happened at this hour.

The victim of the attack is conscious with injuries "across his upper torso" that are said to be "light". He was taken by ambulance to Shaarei Zedek Medical Center hospital for treatment.

A report with an accompanying photo on the Hebrew-language Rotter.net news site [see image at right] suggests the victim is a Haredi Orthodox Jew.

The Tunnel Road is part of a major north-south Israel highway, Route 60. At the point where the attack evidently occurred, it principally serves traffic passing between Jerusalem and the Gush Etzion communities south of the capital.

UPDATE March 7, 2017 at 4:30 pm: Israel National News now explains what happened:

"According to a police investigation into the attack, the victim had taken his car to a mechanic in the Arab village of al-Walaja just south of Jerusalem. After work on the car was completed, the driver left the village. On his way out, he spotted an Arab hitchhiker waiting by the exit of the village for a ride. The victim offered him a ride, which the hitchhiker accepted. During the drive on Route 60, the Arab hitchhiker stabbed the driver, then fled the vehicle."

We're presuming there's a search underway for the hitch-hiker. And that the now-much-wiser Israeli driver is offering special prayers for having survived the stabbing attack.

21-Apr-16: The Hamas jihadists claim the Jerusalem bus bombing as one of their own

Jerusalem: Not 1996, not 2001 - this week [Image Source]

When a Jerusalem bus went up in flames on Monday, causing serious injuries to passengers and damage to several vehicles, there was some question at first about whether to call it an accident, or - this being Jerusalem - to look for a terrorist behind the injuries and harm. The conclusions took time to emerge ["18-Apr-16: A Jerusalem bus has exploded"] as the security people gathered evidence and waited to interview some of the injured from the bus. But we now know.

A Palestinian militant from the occupied West Bank who was wounded when his bomb exploded on an Israeli commuter bus in Jerusalem on Monday has died, an Israeli hospital spokeswoman and a pro-Hamas website said on Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the Jerusalem hospital where the wounded man was treated confirmed he had succumbed to his injuries. Israeli authorities have placed a gag order on the investigation and declined to release any details. The pro-Hamas Palestinian Information Centre identified him as Abdel-Hamid Abu Srour from the Ayda refugee camp near Bethlehem and said he was a member of the Izz el-Deen Al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas militant Islamist group... Israeli medical sources said six people wounded by the blast were still being treated in hospital, the rest had been released by late Wednesday... ["Palestinian wounded in Jerusalem bus bombing dies, Hamas claims him", Reuters, April 20, 2016]

The "militant" is reported to be 19 and has permanently ceased to be an "activist". He will however remain a terrorist and, given the theological orientation implied by the Hamas connection, a jihadist. In Palestinian Arab society, he is now upgraded to "martyr". The shahid posters [click here - we won't reproduce it here] are already on the walls of Arab villages and cities this morning. They are indispensable to the ongoing efforts in every part of Palestinian Arab society to dredge up still more murder-minded bombers, stabbers, shooters and vehicle-rammers. (Small case in point: read what the mother of this week's bomber said, and knew, and didn't do: click.)

How young men and women with unlived lives and unattained achievements ahead of them choose unfathomable hatred as their path and endanger their own lives for the prospect of killing or maiming Jews doesn't get the attention it ought to. There is a process at work, as we wrote yesterday ["20-Apr-16: After Monday's Jerusalem bus bombing, questions (again) about education, children and money"]. That process is totally disguised by analysis like that on display in the same Reuters report, where readers are told

Factors driving the violence include Palestinian bitterness over stalled statehood negotiations and the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, increased Jewish access to a disputed Jerusalem shrine and Islamist-led calls for Israel's destruction.

How differently that bloodshed would look if the news reporting industry placed it in a franker context and with a more comprehensive listing of motivations.

Perhaps editors ought to be encouraged to start with the reality that Arab-on-Israeli terrorism began decades before Israel gained statehood in 1948, and much earlier than the creation of this thing Reuters calls West Bank settlements. Yes, there are many factors, but presenting the grievances as if they were recent is a distortion of the bigotry behind the savagery.

And perhaps those editors might, from time to time, show dancing in the streets where Palestinian Arabs live - dancing for joy, chanting their appreciation for a murderer, declaiming their bigoted hatred for other people whom they don't know but who fit a certain category. Like this Arabic-language video clip from Wednesday - four and a half minutes of video focused on open, undisguised and enthusiastic celebration of murder on the streets of Bethlehem. Yes, Bethlehem.

None of this influences the essentially humane approach of Israeli society which understands why a murderous fanatic like the freshly-deceased jihadist gets treated in one of Israel's best emergency hospitals, Shaarei Zedek Medical Center. Along with Hadassah's two Jerusalem campuses, it's one of the easiest places in Israel to snap photographs of Arabs and Jews mingling with almost zero friction, if that's the sort of message a news reporter ever wanted to convey.

When did you last see that sort of news story?

14-Apr-16: Apart from jihad-minded children with knives and an axe-wielding attacker, peace and calm prevail

The aftermath of today's axe attack on Israelis [Image Source]

There has been an outbreak of local news stories reporting on a decline in the number of attempted terror attacks [for instance "Surge in Palestinian attacks waning" from Deutsche Welle; "All Indications Are That the Intifada Is Waning" from Haaretz; "How The ‘Stabbing Intifada’ Wound Down" from an Australian journal.

So not surprisingly...

An IDF serviceman came under axe attack this afternoon (Thursday) afternoon near the Al-Aroub refugee camp, south of Bethlehem and Jerusalem. Thanks to quick defensive thinking, the attacker was shot dead and no injuries are reported on the Israeli side; the helmet of the Israeli soldier fortunately protected his head from the kind of thing that is ordinarily done by a swinging axe.

Times of Israel identifies the axe-man as Ibrahim Brad’aih, a resident of Al-Aroub in his mid-fifties, The Palestinian Arab media report the attack in customary fashion. The European-funded Ma'an News Agency, in its Arabic-language edition [here], though not in the English version, refers to the death of the attacker as an act of martyrdom, ensuring (which is the whole point) someone somewhere will seek to avenge him and keep the blood-letting cycle going.

Reuters' account helpfully explains why this happened:

"Palestinian leaders say attackers have acted out of desperation in the absence of movement toward creation of an independent Palestinian state in territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war..."

An informed news consumer might wonder why they said so little about that "absence of movement" but explaining it might have required some analysis of the Arab position and their vociferous rejection of General Assembly Resolution 181, the 1947 UN proposal to create a Palestinian state alongside the newly-reborn Israel, and what followed over the next seventy years. The Arab states went to war with tiny and impoverished Israel back then to demonstrate how much they meant it, but they lost the battle comprehensively.

The rest is too long, complicated and frankly unsympathetic to the Arabs for us to expect Reuters' editors to say more than they did... unless, of course, they wanted their readers to actually understand what rubbish it is to blame an axe attack against Israeli security personnel on frustrated dreams of yet another Arab country.

Two Arab pre-teen boys, three concealed slashing
weapons: From the Twitter account of
the Israel Police spokesperson [here]

Haaretz reports that Israel Police personnel thwarted an additional terror attack on Israelis today when they found a pair of knives and a meat cleaver concealed inside the clothing of two young Palestinian Arabs they stopped for questioning in Jerusalem's Old City.

Superintendent Micky Rosenfeld, Israel Police Foreign Press Spokesman, uploaded a photo of the weapons to his Twitter account. That's them in the photo on the right.

Tragically, and not for the first time, today's would-be jihadists are about 12 years old. In the atmosphere created by the Palestinian Authority's ongoing descent into barbarism, even pre-teen children are stopped and questioned when suspicions are aroused, and for awfully good reasons.

The Haaretz account says one of the boys was found to be carrying a farewell letter to his parents, according to the police spokesperson. We're guessing it did not include juvenile thoughts about "the absence of movement toward creation of an independent Palestinian state".

With much greater confidence, we can say this pair of boys will now become poster children for the hopes and passions of a Palestinian Arab culture that cherishes the shedding of infidel blood, and glorifies violence directed at foes whom they demonize in their school books, places of worship and public spaces.

14-Feb-16: Sunday bloody Sunday

Via Israeli social media, a cell phone snapshot of
the automatic weapon taken from the body
of the dead Palestinian Arab attacker from
Arake, a child of 15 [Source]

The news focus here in Israel this mild and pleasant evening has shifted dramatically away from the events of another traumatic day of Arab-on-Israeli violence to a major road accident in which an intercity Egged bus appears to have struck a parked concrete-laden semi-trailer, causing multiple deaths and many injuries ["6 killed, at least 12 hurt when crowded bus hits parked truck", Times of Israel, February 14, 2016].

The day has been difficult from the outset. And consistent with the violent messaging emanating from the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, children are at the forefront of the attacks.

Jerusalem Post says an IDF unit spotted two Palestinian Arabs hurling rocks at Israelis this morning in the vicinity of the security fence near Arake, an Arab village north of Jenin. (Arab sources call it Araqah.) A Hebrew-language social media report places the attack at about 10:30 this morning (Sunday). An army unit deployed to the scene then came under live fire. In response, the soldiers traversed the security fence and engaged the Arab attackers on the Palestinian Arab side. One, it turns out, was armed with an automatic rifle; the second had a knife, according to army sources. Once they were dead, sources from the Palestinian Arab side identified them as two boys aged 15. Both are from Arake. Ma'an names them as Nihad Raed Muhammad Waqed and Fuad Marwan Khalid Waqed.

During the early afternoon, an Arab assailant armed with a knife hurled himself at Border Police officers manning the Mizmoriya checkpoint between the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Har Homa and Bethlehem, south of Jerusalem. According to Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, the attack occurred at about 1:30 pm: "The terrorist ran toward police at the checkpoint with a knife, and when he did not stop Border Police opened fire and killed him...” Fortunately, none of the officers was wounded in the attack." The Jerusalem Post names the dead attacker as 17 year old Naim Safi, of Bethlehem.

Later Sunday afternoon, at about 3:00 pm, Israel Police received an emergency phone call from a woman reporting that an Arab male had attempted to attack her with a knife in Talpiot, one of Jerusalem's southern neighborhoods. Police units immediately set up road blocks and searched for the suspect, but no arrests were made. The search was still going on as we write (Sunday 7:00 pm).

The Hebron attacker, a girl, was rushed
to hospital [Image Source]

Then during the early Sunday evening hours, yet another Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attack in the Hebron area. The Jerusalem Post report describes this as the work of a "female terrorist", and says she was shot and subdued by security forces. Quoting the Border Police, the same source says the attacker was rushed to hospital by military medical personnel and was reported to be in critical condition. According to Times of Israel, it appears the knife attack was the work of a 14 year old Palestinian Arab girl. It quotes police saying she arrived at a checkpoint near the violence-prone ancient Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, took out a knife and attempted to stab a Border Police officer. He pushed her away and shot her, according to the police. Ynet, quoting Palestinian media sources, says the attacker is 14-year-old Jasmine Rashad al-Zaru, and that she is being treated in the Shaarei Zedek Medical Center hospital in Jerusalem.

While some commentators and political figures still seem to want to hear the Palestinian Arab leadership condemn the terror emanating from their ranks, the larger and more significant issue by far is the recruitment of Palestinian Arab citizens' children to the frontlines of their fruitless and massively self-destructive war of terror against Jews and Israelis.

This has implications that will continue to plague lives on both sides of the border long after the manipulative kleptocrats and child-abusers of the Mahmoud Abbas regime have passed on and gone to their rewards.

05-Jan-16: In Gush Etzion, a Tuesday morning stabbing attack

Scene at the busy Gush Etzion Junction immediately after today's
attack [Video grab - source]

Barely 9 in the morning, and a terror attack is already reported from Gush Etzion, a few kilometers south of Jerusalem. It appears to be a stabbing assault at the frequently-attacked Gush Etzion Junction, and the intended victim, an IDF soldier in social social media reports, a 34-year-old male according to Israel National News, and possibly an ordinary Joe Citizen heading off for a day of miluim (military reserves duty) is said to be lightly injured and en route to Shaarei Zedek Medical Center for emergency treatment. The attacker was shot dead.

According to one version of what the police have said, a vehicle traveling from the Arab town of Beit Fajar brought the stabbing attacker close to the hitchhiking post near Kibbutz Migdal Oz, dropping him off there. Some short time after that, he launched his knifing assault. He's reported to be a 21 year old Arab male from the Bethlehem area according to one source. But Ma'an News Agency identifies him as Ahmad Younis Kawazba, 18, from Sair, a village located north of Hebron.

Ma'an tells its readers that the dead man was "the sixth resident of Sair to be shot dead by Israeli forces since a wave of unrest swept the occupied Palestinian territory at the beginning of October". Oddly the Ma'an editors fail to note that the "wave of unrest" is characterized by Arab-on-Israeli attacks - shootings, stabbings, vehicle-rammings - executed by people of about Kawazba's age and younger, a disproportionate number of them from Hebron and nearby villages.

We're confident this omission is an accidental editorial oversight, to be corrected very soon now by the diligent Ma'an journalists. Likewise the extremely strange term they apply to Tzomet Gush Etzion, a place where a succession of Palestinian Arabs armed with knives, guns and cars has descended in order to launch dozens of attacks on Israeli pedestrians, commuters and hitch-hikers morning, noon and night and have been shot dead or wounded by alert Israeli security personnel who are now posted there round the clock:

Ma'an's clever writers, bless their perverted keyboards, call these murderous, lemming-like Arab-on-Israeli attacks "several deadly encounters".

Rajoub of Fatah (and FIFA) [Image Source]

Let's also mention in this context how Jibril Rajoub, the head of the Palestinian Football Association (also the head of the Palestinian Olympic Committee; also a convicted and imprisoned Fatah terrorist in past years; also Head of the Palestinian Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs), has just gone on the record, speaking about people like this morning's failed stabber from Sair, saying "Fatah supports and encourages the heroes who are carrying out the attacks. We are proud of them."

Though Rajoub is a brazen liar, we feel he should certainly be believed on this. (For more about this loathsome child-abuser, see "08-May-13: I am your partner. I am going to kill you now".)

Fatah, for the education of the many reporters and editors who appear not to know this, is headed by Mahmoud Abbas who is also the president of the Palestinian Authority. It's safe to assume Mr Abbas is also deeply proud of the boys and girls who take knives, guns and car keys and set out to kill them some Jews, as many dozens have done in the past 3 months of extreme violence.

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.

UPDATE: January 5, 2015 at 10:00 am: Times of Israel's updated report quotes people from the Magen David Adom ambulance service saying this morning's victim suffered injuries to his face and arms, and "was conscious and “walking around” when paramedics arrived on the scene". We hope he's well on the road to a complete recovery by now.

25-Dec-15: T'is the season to be very, very wary

Newsweek cover, March 2015

News reporting from Israel at this time of year often adopts a theme that Israelis, at least those Israelis like us who are tuned into the nuances of foreign reporting - find offensive. We think it reflects an infuriating, tone-deaf approach to centuries of fraught Christian/Jewish history.

Here where we live, today is a bright, sunny, chilly winter Friday - a delight to be outdoors, but cold when the sun sets. Classic Jerusalem.

Less bright is the violence in the news. Here's what Times of Israel is saying at this hour about the mood in the town that borders the southern flank of Israel's capital city. The headline reads "Palestinians beef up Bethlehem security amid fears of IS attack":

The Palestinian Authority was reportedly concerned that Salafists aligned with the Islamic State would attempt to perpetrate an attack in Bethlehem, as thousands of Christian pilgrims flocked to the West Bank city for the holidays. Seeking to thwart an attack, PA security forces placed 16 radical Islamists in administrative detention without charge, according to an Israel Radio report. Palestinian security was beefed up throughout the city in anticipation of an attempted shooting or bombing attack on tourists and Palestinian Christians, the report said. The Palestinian security forces were said to have received concrete threats of an attack by IS-linked militants... [Times of Israel, today]

Bethlehem's problems with the likes of ISIS are a small sub-set of a much larger catastrophe for Christians, unfolding right across the Middle East, '

Associated Press, in a seasonal report this morning, says devotees from around the world

descended on the biblical city of Bethlehem for Christmas Eve celebrations at the traditional birthplace of Jesus, trying to lift spirits on a holiday dampened by months of Israeli-Palestinian violence. [But] crowds were thin and hotel rooms were empty. While the annual festivities in Bethlehem’s Manger Square went on, other celebrations in the city were canceled or toned down. [AP via Al Arabiya, today]

It's downhill from there. Why are the celebrations "toned down"? How to explain empty hotel rooms? AP says it's because of the

months of Israeli-Palestinian violence... Israeli authorities said three Palestinian assailants were killed as they carried out or tried to carry out stabbing or car-ramming attacks against Israeli security personnel, and a fourth Palestinian was killed in clashes with Israeli troops, a Palestinian hospital official said. Two Israeli security guards and a soldier were wounded...

That's a disturbingly inaccurate view. The reality is there's been a vicious campaign underway here for the past three months. It's being explicitly urged on by the duplicitous "peace-seeking" Mahmoud Abbas regime in Ramallah and it's energized by calls for more stabbings, rammings and shootings by the Christianity-hating Islamists of Hamas. The result is hundreds of violent attacks on Israelis - and not only on Israeli security personnel - executed by Palestinian men, women and especially young boys and girls. That's not mentioned anywhere in AP's syndicated news report.

To the extent AP acknowledges any motive on the Arab side, it's lamely called "the result of nearly 50 years of military occupation". But in truth, when Abbas and his clique address their own people in the Arabic language, they base their case on more immediate and incendiary issues. As Jonathan Tobin wrote this week in Commentary Magazine:

Palestinian leaders like Abbas who will speak tomorrow of Jesus’s message and of a desire for “peace on earth” and “justice” have also played a principle role in inciting these bloody attacks. It is the same Abbas who spoke just a few months ago about the need for Palestinians to prevent “stinking Jewish feet” from polluting holy places sacred to all three monotheistic faiths and who praises those who try to butcher Jews as “martyrs” that will be allowed to grandstand on international television tomorrow. And it is also the same Abbas that refused multiple Israeli offers of peace and statehood, in spite of his claims that this is what he wants. But, of course, Abbas isn’t the only source of Palestinian leadership. Though they will not put on a Christmas show for the world, Hamas is also making its presence felt. Unlike Abbas’s Fatah Party, those Islamists make no pretense of respecting Christianity. But it is fear of competition from the rulers of Gaza that impels Abbas to continue to stoke the fires of conflict when not preening for the foreign press... ["The Real Palestinian Christmas Show", Jonathan S. Tobin, December 23, 2015]

Inadvertently perhaps, the AP piece helps alert readers see that Bethlehem's problems are something other than "months of Israeli-Palestinian violence".

As the festivities got underway, Miral Siriani, a 35-year-old publicist from Jerusalem, said she was relieved to get a break from three months of tension that has included numerous attacks in her city. “I feel safe in Bethlehem,” she said.

There's a reason the Jerusalem-based Arab lady feels safe in Bethlehem, and less so in the city she shares with us and our children. The Israeli military and police are arrayed right across our country right now, especially in Jerusalem, in order - not to suppress peaceful seasonal celebrations, not to interfere with ordinary people's lives, not to threaten random violence - to blunt the wave of terror attacks by Palestinian Arab zealots pumped up by the lethal rhetoric of their elites.

To put it more plainly, Bethlehem, an Arab town populated by Arabs and with no Jewish residents, is safe from "Israeli-Palestinian violence". Jerusalem, an Israeli city with a mixed Arab/Israeli population, is not. Underlining why it is not are the data we presented here a few days ago: "14-Dec-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?"

Local vendors, Manger Square, Bethlehem, this week
[Image Source]

AP could have said, but never does, that the security barrier - walls, fences, crossing points - has been dramatically effective in slowing down the rate of human bomb attacks. It has stopped the shootings by Tanzim gunmen who occupied the northern edge of Bethlehem in 2000-2002 and fired round the clock into southern Jerusalem and especially into the Gilo neighbourhood, bringing death and misery into lives on both sides. Still, we have gotten used to how agenda-driven reporters and their editors keep referring to Israel's Apartheid Wall. The reality is it has saved untold lives - Israeli, Arab, foreign. No one has yet been killed or injured by the security barrier, or by the road tunnel that runs beneath Bethlehem, protecting travelers from the sniper fire and fire-bombings that plagued the road it replaces.

Inside Bethlehem, as the report at the top of this post shows, things are more complicated. Arab-on-Arab violence gets much less media attention. But in a town that has undergone a dramatic demographic skewing since coming under the control of the Palestinian Authority in the early nineties, Christians know what they are up against:

Sobhy Makhoul, the chancellor of the Maronite Patriarchate in Jerusalem, told AsiaNews that the fire that broke out over the weekend at St Charbel Maronite Monastery in Bethlehem was deliberately set. “It was an act of arson, not a fire caused by an electrical problem, an act of sectarian vandalism by radical Muslims”... For the chancellor of the Maronite Patriarchate, “The attack is sectarian in nature. It is anti-Christian, like many other incidents across the Middle East. Extremist groups operate in the area, including some Hamas cells. There are also some loose cannons that give vent to their ideology." The St Charbel Maronite Convent is located in Wadi Maali, a predominantly Muslim neighbourhood in Bethlehem... [Asia News, September 28, 2015]

The unmistakable trend in Bethlehem's population tells its own story.

• Wikipedia's data quotes an American visitor describing the town as having a population of 3,000 to 4,000 in 1867; about 100 were Protestants, an insignificant 300 or so were Muslims and "the remainder belonging to the Latin and Greek Churches with a few Armenians". 
• In 1948, when the Jordanian army began its 19-year occupation of the town, 85% of its inhabitants were Christian, mostly Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic. Muslims were 13%.
• When Israel defeated the Jordanians in 1967 and conducted a census, it found 14,439 inhabitants, of whom Muslims were 54%. 
• Under Israeli stewardship, Bethlehem grew to 22,000 by 1997. 
• The most recent census in Bethlehem was conducted by the PA in 2006: it showed Bethlehem with a population of 25,000 to 29,000, with Muslims more than two-thirds of the total. 

And to remind the faithful that no matter how badly things are going, worse is almost certainly ahead:

Christianity faces "elimination" in the Middle East, the region where it began, the Archbishop of Canterbury will warn in his Christmas Day sermon. The Most Reverend Justin Welby will say so-called Islamic State is "igniting a trail of fear, violence, hatred and determined oppression". He will also brand IS as "a Herod of today" - a reference to the Biblical king at the time of Jesus's birth. The archbishop will deliver his sermon at Canterbury Cathedral... "They hate difference, whether it is Muslims who think differently, Yazidis or Christians, and because of them the Christians face elimination in the very region in which Christian faith began. This apocalypse is defined by themselves and heralded only by the angel of death." [BBC, today]

Nonetheless, let's take a moment to wish peace to all men, women and children.

24-Dec-15: Another terror outrage narrowly averted - and Shalit Deal releasees are again at the heart of the darkness

Al-Quds University students [Image Source]

This could have turned out very, very badly - and might still.

Right here in Jerusalem, side by side with ordinary, constructive lives being lived by most of the people who call this special city home, a cluster of death-cultists - yet another in a lengthening string of them, working in dark places and preparing unspeakably dark plans involving injuries, mayhem and deaths - has been stopped.

No one imagines they are the only such cluster of plotters or that there will not be others on the way. But these, at least, have been stopped for now.

No innocent civilians were hurt - at least, not for now. So news coverage of this important development has been sparse outside our beleaguered country, particularly as seasonal celebrations have the attention of most of Europe, Australia and the Americas. From Times of Israel:

The Shin Bet, alongside the IDF and Israel Police, have thus far arrested 25 Hamas operatives, the majority of them Al-Quds University in Abu Dis students, who they suspect were preparing to attack Israeli targets, the agency said in a statement. The arrests were carried out over the past few weeks. The service also uncovered a makeshift laboratory in Abu Dis, in east Jerusalem, which was being used to create the explosives necessary for bombing attacks. It said the cell was controlled by Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip... In addition to the Abu Dis terror cell, the Shin Bet also busted a [related] Bethlehem-based group... ["Hamas cell planned suicide and car bombings, Shin Bet reveals", Times of Israel, December 23, 2015]

Some of the plotters

The article makes clear that some of the intelligence that led to the unraveling of this group's plans came from interrogations carried out by PA security officers of Hamas people arrested by them. As we keep noting in this blog, Hamas operates throughout the areas occupied by the PA, in some places more publicly, in others less. Their hand, not to mention their flags and the signs of their terror-focused activities, are everywhere.

Among those arrested in this latest intercept:

• Ahmad Jamal Mousa Azzam, 24, from Qalqilya, at some point a student at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis: Considered the terrorist ringleader, and controlled from Gaza. He was given training by his handlers in "how to create explosive belts and vests, as well as improvised explosive devices". Once in, Azzam recruited the others, mostly from among the Al-Quds student body. Some of those were intended to become human bombs.
• Hazem Ziad Amran Sandouqa, 22, a resident of the Old City of Jerusalem and an Israeli citizen - therefore able to move around with relative ease, an obvious strategic advantage to the planning and execution of terror. 
• Fahdi Daoud Muhammad Abu Qaian, 19, also an Israeli citizen, a Bedouin from the Negev, and a designated attacker in the terror plot. Under interrogation, he confessed that he was being prepared for a bombing mission by means of an explosive vest or by driving an explosives-packed vehicle into an Israeli target (we're guessing the target would have consisted of human beings).
• Issa Nasser Issa Shoka, 19, an Al-Quds University student, a designated money courier and intending human bomb, as well as one of the leaders of the Bethlehem cell.
• Muhammad Waleed Ahmad Sarhkhan, 20, of the Bethlehem cell.
• Muhammad Na’im Issa Ali, 19, also from the Bethlehem cell, another intending human bomb.

Avi Issacharoff, in a follow-on article published last night ["What if the Hamas terror cell in Abu Dis had succeeded?", Times of Israel, December 23, 2015], looks at the dire consequences had this Hamas terrorist cell not been stopped:

The Palestinian Authority is surviving. And overall, Israeli citizens have become used to a sick reality in which almost every day Palestinians try to attack them. [But although] this weapons factory and infrastructure were discovered, the fact is that every passing day moves us closer to Second Intifada-style terrorism... [Issacharoff]

Viewing yesterday's IDF real-time video (above) of soldiers breaking into the Jerusalem lab and doing an inventory of the chemicals they found there turns this into something more real and immediate. For purposes of bomb making, the jihadist/murderers had stocked up (something we have not seen reported so far in the news) on nitro-glycerine and cyanide - they're shown clearly. That's in addition to an evil scientist's trove of lethal substances and explosives intended for killing and seriously harming people. Experience tells us those people would have been innocent Israelis, almost certainly civilians. That's how terror works.

Had, Heaven forbid, the Abu Dis/Bethlehem terror collective pulled off a "showcase" outrage

The Israeli government would have come under immense pressure to take steps against the PA, and the call for a closure of the major West Bank cities would have come from every direction. The pressure would likely have led to a ban on all Palestinian workers entering Israel, and possibly even to a widespread IDF operation in one or more West Bank cities... Tens of thousands more unemployed Palestinians would be on the streets, with hundreds of thousands affected by their loss of income. More violent confrontations with young Palestinians would likely ensue. The fraying of cooperation between the PA security forces and the IDF would be inevitable, maybe even a complete severance of such cooperation. And at the end of that slippery slope, the collapse of the PA itself... [T]hat’s precisely why Hamas has been trying so hard to set up an infrastructure capable of carrying out suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, including inside sovereign Israel... Hamas is avoiding a direct confrontation with Israel in Gaza but is doing a lot to heat things up in the West Bank. Senior Hamas operatives in Gaza know they have a certain amount of immunity from Israel, because Israel does not want another major conflict there. The people who are today orchestrating the effort to carry out attacks are mostly Hamas members who were freed in the 2011 Shalit exchange — West Bankers who were exiled to Gaza under the deal. Somebody in Israel evidently believed, or wanted to believe, that confining them to Gaza would reduce the danger they presented. Except that even from Gaza, these people have now become a central headache for Israel in the West Bank... [Issacharoff]

We blogged last month ["27-Nov-14: Hamas terrorist ring is busted; Israel says the handlers operate from Turkey; Qatar is involved"] about the meaningfully-malevolent role of Shalit Deal releasees. And we offered more background here: "11-Dec-15: The price of the Shalit Deal and the countries that help it keep rising".

The price paid by Israeli society - and in a meaningful sense also by the Palestinian Arabs - for this catastrophic transaction keeps growing. Yet there remains, it has to be said and with some pain, a striking unwillingness among the insiders of our government to properly analyze what was done, reach operative conclusions and express sincere regret. It's surely called for.

10-Nov-15: Qalqilya where the strings are pulled by Hamas and Qatar

Marching for Hamas in the center of Qalqilya, May 13, 2011
[Image Source]

Hamas controls the Gaza Strip. But it's often not fully appreciated how much Hamas' Islamist tentacles now reach well inside the second of the Palestinian Arab entities, the one supposedly controlled by Fatah and the Mahmoud Abbas clique.

In the 2006 Palestinian Arab municipal elections, Qalqilya, a city of more than 40,000 located right on the edge of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, elected a Hamas candidate as mayor. He was subsequently replaced in the course of intra-Arab intrigues and Fatah has been in charge since then. But in some significant respects, Hamas is still the local force to be reckoned with.

In the early hours of this morning (Tuesday), Israeli security forces - a blend of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), the IDF, and personnel of the Israel Police - converged on Qalqilya. From reports, the impression is of a massive operation including the elite Duvdevan unit undercover soldiers Egoz commando unit of the Golan Brigade, undercover Border Police officers from the Judea and Samaria district, and soldiers of the IDF's Kfir infantry brigade's Duchifat battalion, and the Artillery Corps' Reshef and Namer battalions.

No secret about the Hamas presence in Qalqilya [Image Source: 2011 march]

The Jerusalem Post's report says the raiders

targeted, among others, the alleged local Hamas commander, who worked to renew Hamas activity in the Kalkilya region and in surrounding villages. The activities allegedly included "preparing the ground for terrorist activities," the Shin Bet said. The Hamas operatives were orchestrated and received instructions, as well as a high degree of funding, from Hamas headquarters in Qatar and in the Gaza Strip, "which assisted in building up the infrastructure," the Shin Bet added. Security forces raided addresses and arrested 24 Hamas operatives, some of whom served repeated past jail terms for past Hamas military activities, the intelligence agency said. Security forces also seized more than NIS 35,000 during the raids... "The Hamas infrastructure in Kalkilya is one of Hamas's oldest in the West Bank," the Shin Bet said. "This episode uncovers the ongoing activities of Hamas headquarters abroad and in the Gaza Strip, as well as the activities of local West Bank infrastructures, to realize their goal of building up their forces, with a view of reaching organizational and military readiness... Their end goal is to carry out terrorist attacks and engage in military activity against Israeli targets..." [Jerusalem Post, November 10, 2015]

A total of 36 terrorism suspects, including the 24 Hamas people from Qalqilya, were taken into custody overnight. along with firearms and ammunition. Other Israeli raids this morning led to arrests of Palestinian Arabs in Shechem/Nablus (2 arrests), Bethlehem (3), Hebron (5), Jericho.(1) [source: Ma'an News Agency]

Is there any realistic Israeli expectation that Hamas has been uprooted from those places? No. Hamas is clearly present and embedded throughout Judea and Samaria - the mis-named West Bank (west of what? Jordan), and growing in influence.

But note also the malign influence of Qatar where the First Lady of the United States spent several days last week, departing on Friday after canceling ("because of bad weather") a second Middle East stop in Jordan. The cancellation left her "extremely disappointed", according to a Gulf Times report.

Head of Hamas, Meshaal lives far from the rigours and dangers of Gaza
in Qatar. Why? Ah, that would require a long explanation about the central
role of money in his brand of terror [Image Source]

Khaled Mashaal, the most inside of the Hamas terrorism insiders and a man with a personal fortune measured in the billions of dollars, has lived luxuriously in Qatar since 2012.

Qatar is, in many ways, the ideal perch from which to safely oversee the spread of Hamas' influence and tentacles inside the arch-rival PA's roiling fiefdom.

Which leaves us to observe that Qatar has to be an odd place for Michelle Obama to spend time. Astoundingly rich because of the gas located deep below its arid sandy landscape, Qatar (to quote Wikipedia)

buys influence in Western countries through investments and donations...  [investing its money] extensively in London real estate, and the regime has also made donations to prominent research centers in the United States. At the same time, Qatar maintains ties to Western adversaries, including Iran, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and extremist elements in Syria...

That kind of balancing act probably explains why Qatar is so careful with what it reveals to its friends and citizens. To illustrate, if you look now at the current edition of the local newspaper, the Gulf Times (online here), you will see it carries a detailed report of the Israeli raid on Qalqilya, based on a syndicated AFP article (here). The AFP version mentions the connection to string-pullers in Qatar. The Qatar version (here) does not.

If you're wondering - yes, other publications that subscribe to AFP's syndication service, like Al-Arabiya (based in Dubai), The Malaysian Insider, and Daily Mail UK among others - also published the AFP report but did include the reference to Qatar.

11-Aug-15: Still more stabbings of Israelis - wait, no, thankfully this one was intercepted

The suspect in custody yesterday: just a 17 year old girl and
already terminally crippled by violent hatred [Image Source]

Living in a terrorism-rich environment makes people like us a touch impatient with the occasional calls for our side to treat the neighbours with greater respect - relax those oppressive security arrangements, take down the checkpoints, give women, and especially teenage girls the leeway they are entitled to, and so on.

Keeping those sentiments, here's a news report from the Jerusalem Post that will probably not have made it to news channels outside our borders:

An unidentified Palestinian youth was detained Monday after admitting that she intended to use a knife, found in her hand bag during a search at a checkpoint, to commit a terror attack at an Israeli prison. The suspect, 17, who attempted to pass through a checkpoint south of Hebron, initially claimed that she forgot that the knife was in her possession and that its use was for cutting vegetables. Under interrogation in Hebron, she admitted that she intended to use the knife to stab a female prison officer at Eshel prison, where her brother lectures inmates who are serving sentences for security related offenses... On Saturday Hamas publicly called for widespread attacks against Israelis. "The murderous settlers will not be deterred unless we initiate attacks - do not wait for them to arrive in our villages and towns,"  said Hamas spokesperson Husma (sic) Badran. Since then several attacks have been carried out. ["Palestinian arrested after admitting 'vegetable knife' was meant for terror attack", Jerusalem Post, August 11, 2015]

Just to recap: she's 17, a girl. Her weapon, a knife, is of the kind that has caused the deaths of many innocent Israelis. And there's a fresh general call in the air from the savages of Hamas to do precisely the murderous thing she confesses to planning to do.

Rational human beings will be all in favour of more and stronger security measures - like checkpoints, fences, and alert, well-trained and armed security personnel - to intercept jihad-minded Arabs from doing what the echo chamber in which they live is instructing them to do. This probably offends some people, but life is too short and too sacred to pay attention to their foolishness.

Husam Badran, mentioned in the report above, is the Hamas spokesperson most closely aligned with the ongoing calls for more acts of murder against Israelis:

"[T]he shootings... and the stabbing operations that have been carried out by lone men and women represent an important development..." Hamas, he said, “welcomes these actions... an important and positive step towards returning to the natural state in which we must fight the occupation directly until it is defeated... it will not be long before the [West] Bank returns to the days of the Aqsa Intifada.” [From a June speech by Badran reported in Algemeiner]

Incitement doesn't come much clearer or lethal than that. Thankfully, there are people on our side who understand the implications.

29-Jun-15: Fresh reasons today to appreciate Jerusalem's alert security personnel

The source caption reads: "The Shuafat Refugee Camp from the
Jewish neighborhood of Pisgat Ze’ev, in northeast Jerusalem.
(Miriam Alster/Flash90 )" [Image Source]

For some background to the Arab violence of yesterday and today here in Jerusalem, see "22-Jun-15: Deconstructing the Ramadan stabbings and shootings".

Today (Monday):

Times of Israel says Border Police officers at a Jerusalem-periphery checkpoint on the edge of Shuafat intercepted a Palestinian Arab youth of 15 very early this morning. They found him to be armed with an assault weapon concealed under his clothes, and attempting to get through the Israeli checkpoint in order to fulfill his destiny.

The Border Police officer who was manning a metal detector at the checkpoint asked the teen to pass through the security check a second time, after the detector indicated the presence of a metallic object on his person. When a second inspection also showed the presence of a metal object, the officer asked the youth to remove his shirt, revealing a sub-machine gun. The youth was taken into police custody for investigation. [Times of Israel, today]

The IDF furnished this image of the Carl Gustav
gun forcibly separated from a social-climbing Arab 15 year old
this morning [Image Source]

Shuafat is a neighbourhood on Jerusalem's north side with a large and thriving "refugee camp". Those are typical Shuafat refugee shanties in the photo above.

Israel National News ["Gun-Toting Arab Teen Terrorist Arrested Entering Jerusalem"] adds that the quick-thinking young service-man, on realizing what the Arab youngster had in mind, promptly closed off the inspection area's revolving door and secured the site while calling to his commander. The two then "worked together to neutralize the teen and separate him from the weapon, a light-weight automatic Carl Gustav." It's not difficult to imagine a scenario where, to avoid unnecessary risks in the dark hours of the early morning, a terror-minded young man with a serious weapon might have been more permanently neutralized by heavy-handed security personnel unwilling to take chances. That is not what happened there today, and we can all - especially the kid with jihad fever - be glad of that.

This is how we remember ancient Rachel's Tomb
as it looked in the 1980's and 1990's [Image Source]

Separately, there was an unprovoked stabbing this morning in southern Jerusalem, close to Rachel's Tomb, an ancient place of pilgrimage for faithful Jews for, oh, about 1,700 years. According to Ynet [Palestinian woman stabs female IDF soldier | June 29, 2015], the attacker - a Palestinian Arab woman, evidently with terror on her mind as well - stabbed a young woman serving in the Border Guard during a security check at about 11 this morning. The soldier, about 20, suffered serious knife wounds to her neck. According to Times of Israel, she was conscious when taken to Hadassah Medical Center for emergency medical care. The attacker was arrested unharmed, and found to be in possession of two additional knives.

Tragically, Rachel's Tomb needs far more protection
now [Image Source]

Israel National News points out that

Rachel's Tomb, where the Jewish Biblical matriarch Rachel is buried, has been a target for terror attacks since the outbreak of the Second Intifada or Oslo War in 2000, and as a result the compound has been heavily fortified. The IDF told Knesset Members in mid-2013 that about 200 firebombs and 90 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) had been thrown at the compound since November 2012's Pillar of Defense counter-terror operation in Gaza, indicating an average of almost two bombs a day. The military said that the nine-meter (almost 30-feet) high walls that have been constructed around the Tomb compound have not sufficed to provide security, with suggestions raised at the time to build a roof to protect the site from attacks from all angles.

A February 2015 rock-hurling attack directed at children living
in Maale Hazeitim [Image Source]

Also this morning: a school bus bringing young children to their school in central Jerusalem from their homes in Jerusalem's Ma'ale Hazeitim neighborhood of in Jerusalem came under rock attack during the morning rush hour. The heroes hurling the rocks were masked, according to Israel National News. Some of them might have been in this February attack depicted in the snapshot on the right. No reports of injuries so far.

Yesterday (Sunday):

A Palestinian Arab woman was arrested Sunday afternoon attempting to cross into Israel from Kalkilya, a Palestinian Arab settlement, with a concealed shotgun. Israel's Channel 2 reported last night that she confessed under interrogation that she had been despatched by Hamas to carry out an attack against Israelis. [Source: Times of Israel] Though it's right in the middle of the areas currently controlled by the Fatah/PLO regime of Mahmoud Abbas, Kalkliya has long been dominated by the Islamists of Hamas. A YMCA to serve the town's tiny Christian population was burned to the ground by local activists and militants in 2006.