09-Oct-15: The wave of terror attacks goes on

In the aftermath of this morning's murderous attack on an Israeli in the
Kiryat Arba community, the assailant's knife and blood are left behind
after the victim is taken to hospital and the attacker is shot dead [Image Source]

The coordinated eruption of rock-hurlings, stabbings, shootings and assaults by Arabs on Israelis continues in full force today, Friday.

We heard a commentator on BBC's Outside Source, reporting from the Mount of Olives an hour ago, call them lone-wolf attacks (she may also have slipped the word "alleged" into the sentence to flesh out the effect of her political korrectness) but they are nothing of the sort - unless wolves take their orders via shrill voices broadcasting messages of hate-based incitement via the social media and in mosques and prayer rooms.

The direction of the reporting, at a time when Arab-on-Jew attacks are happening at a furious pace throughout the country, is reflected in the precisely-worded lede of a major BBC report at this hour:

Israelis and Palestinians have been injured in a fresh spate of stabbings, including what Israeli police say was an apparent revenge attack on Arabs... The attacks come amid soaring tensions between Israelis and Palestinians...  ["Israelis and Palestinians injured in new stabbing attacks", uploaded to BBC's website around 3:00 pm Friday]

Here's an incomplete summary as of 2:30 pm Friday:

• An Arab woman attacked a security guard with her knife in Afula's bus station around 2:00 pm this afternoon. (Another knifing attack was launched on one of Afula's main streets just last night.) The guard was unarmed according to this report, though he was part of the team responsible for safeguarding passengers moving through this northern city's main transit hub. Friday early afternoon is one of the week's two major public transport rush-hours throughout Israel. Friday is the start of the weekend in Israel, and many travelers want to be at their destination before the sun sets signifying the start of the Sabbath, The attacker, evidently a resident of the predominantly Arab Israeli city of Nazareth, whose name is reported as Asraa Zidan Tawfik Abed, was stopped with a bullet fired by one of two IDF soldiers (says Jerusalem Post), one male, one female, who fired at her legs and brought her down but did not kill her (this is not Syria or Jordan). The knife-woman is now in Afula's Ha'emek Hospital getting the best treatment that Israeli medicine can offer. We wish her a speedy recovery and a very long prison sentence. The guard's selfless actions almost certainly saved lives today.
• In the southern city of Dimona, a Jewish youth of 17 stabbed four Arabs this morning. BBC calls them "two Israeli Bedouins and two Palestinians". The attacks occurred at a shopping center and nearby. A security guard tackled the knife-wielding Israeli and held him till police arrived to arrest him. This Jew-on-Arab attack has caused an uncommon amount of consternation. News reporters often search high and low to spin terrorism and related events in this country as if they were part of some mythical cycle-of-violence, which they are not. The violence in this current wave is like that of previous waves - calculated to deliver a message of hatred-driven terror into the hearts of Israelis. Unfortunately an Israeli engaging in similar-looking tactics, even given the vast gulf that separates Israeli public opinion about terror from Palestinian Arab views on the same subject, makes it that little bit easier for those superficial reports to be made and to sound credible. All four of the Arab victims are out of danger. Two have moderate injuries and the other two are said to have light injuries. Three of them were taken to Beer Sheba's Soroka Medical Center for treatment. According to Associated Press, "Dimona mayor Beni Bitton said the stabber is a "mentally ill man." He told Channel 10 TV that two of the victims worked for City Hall, and that passers-by quickly rushed to help the wounded Arabs and provided first aid."
• On the narrow route that passes the notoriously violent Arab village, Beit Ummar (about which we have written frequently), hails of rocks yesterday and today (and many times in the past) continue to make life dangerous for Israeli traffic traveling on the Gush Etzion, Kiryat Arba and Karmei Tzur roads. Numerous vehicles have been damaged during today's violence.
• In Jerusalem around noon today in the haredi Shmuel Hanavi neighbourhood, a Jewish teenager of 16 (according to Jerusalem Post) was stabbed and moderately injured by a Palestinian Arab from Hebron. Israel National News reports that the assailant was tracked down by security personnel and apprehended soon after, The wounded boy is getting treated at Hadassah hospital.
• Also around noon, in Kiryat Arba - close to the spot where a serious very similar attack took place yesterday - a policeman was stabbed and injured by a Palestinian Arab male. The assailant was shot by other officers and died of his wounds.
• We are hearing reports from the coastal city of Ashdod about Arab construction workers hurling rocks and cinder blocks at passing cars in the early afternoon.
• And perhaps feeling out-activisted by the Fatah-controlled crowds of lone-wolves in Judea and Samara, the Hamas overlords of the Gaza Strip appear to be flexing their muscles this afternoon. A Times of Israel report, uploaded around 3:00 pm Friday, says "Hamas’s chief in Gaza on Friday called for additional violence against Israel. "Gaza will fulfill its role in the Jerusalem intifada and it is more than ready for confrontation,” Ismail Haniyeh said during a sermon for weekly Muslim prayers at a mosque in Gaza City. “We are calling for the strengthening and increasing of the intifada… It is the only path that will lead to liberation,” he said." The results were not long in coming: "Some 200 Palestinians approached the fence closest to the Nahal Oz Kibbutz in the northern Gaza Strip. “They began throwing stones and rolling burning tires at Israeli forces,” an army spokesperson said. IDF troops, who remained on the Israeli side of the border, opened fire at the protesters, who were approximately 150 feet (50 meters) away, in order to break up the protest and push them from the fence, the spokesman said."

More when we can manage to write and edit. The Sabbath is approaching fast.

20-Jul-14: Hamas rocket devastates Israeli family, kills father

Zero red lines: Rocket men in Gaza fire at anything Israeli

The constant indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza continues, and exacted a human life during Saturday afternoon.

Jerusalem Post says an Israeli died after sustaining critical injuries from a rocket attack near Dimona. Four other people, including two young children, were injured in the same attack and are undergoing hospital treatment for their injuries. One, a three-month-old baby, is in critical condition; another appears (to us) to be her mother and the widow of the dead man. Times of Israel names the dead victim as a 32-year-old man from a Bedouin community near Dimona, Ouda Lafi al-Waj, and explains

Since many Bedouin communities are unrecognized by the government, many basic services are not provided to them. They are also not protected by Iron Dome, which registers their homes as “open areas” and allows rockets to fall there without attempting interception.

Maan, the Palestinian news agency, says the dead man was killed by a rocket that fell short of its real target (if that's an expression that can fairly be used in a war in which rockets by the hundred are simply flung into the air by the jihadists in the general direction of something Israeli.) The Negev desert city of Dimona is home to an Israeli nuclear reactor and there is constant speculation that Hamas is making efforts to hit the reactor, among various other "quality" targets.

The Maan report says Al-Waj lived in

Qasr al-Sir, an unrecognized Bedouin village in southern Israel with a population of around 1,000. Israeli medical sources said that the injured included a 4-month-old baby girl in serious condition as well as a 5-year-old boy and a woman in her 30s with light injuries. The injured appeared to all be members of the same family.

On Tuesday, Dror Khenin, 37, was killed near the Erez border crossing with the Gaza Strip. He was hit by a mortar launched by Gaza terrorists and rushed to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon but died there of his wounds. Khenin was a volunteer who had come to distribute food to soldiers posted to the area.

7-Jan-11: Defeating terror: they have their ways, we have ours

Two dimensions of the world's struggle with the terrorists in today's news. And a reminder of the side to which the "moderate" PA regime under Mahmoud Abbas belongs in the war.

Story #1

PA Releases Prisoners Involved in Terror Attacks on Israelis

Khaled Abu Toameh - Jerusalem Post 6th January 2011 (19:48 Israel time): PA President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday ordered the release of six Hamas detainees who were on a hunger strike in a PA prison in Hebron. Israel Radio reported that one of the prisoners, Waed al-Bitar, was involved in a terror attack near Kiryat Arba in which 4 Israelis were killed, and another prisoner was involved in a Dimona area terror attack. More

Story #2

IDF Re-arrests Hamas Members Freed by PA

Haaretz Service, Reuters and DPA - 7th January 2011 (08:18 Israel time): The IDF raided Hebron Friday to re-arrest six Hamas members that the Palestinian Authority had released the day before. The PA had taken the six into custody in September after four Israelis were killed and two injured in two separate shooting attacks in the West Bank. Hamas' military wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, took responsibility for both shootings, one of which occurred on the eve of the start of direct Palestinian-Israeli negotiations in Washington. The six Hamas members, all Hebron residents, were first held in a PA prison in Bethlehem, south of Hebron, but went on hunger strike, demanding to be moved to Hebron so that their families could visit them. The PA moved only five to Hebron after about 40 days of the hunger strike and following coordination with Israel. The sixth remained in Bethlehem. PA officials said Thursday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas ordered their release after direct appeal from the emir of Qatar.

Two reports separated by half a day - and a difference of 180 degrees in attitude.

In case you have forgotten, the convicted, freed and now re-incarcerated murderer, Waed al-Bitar, named in the Jerusalem Post article, is one of the Hamas thugs who gunned down four unarmed Israeli civilians, two of them women, in September 2010. We reported it ("1-Sep-10: Real people, real terror") at the time.

Our September 2010 report of the murders executed by the thugs released this week,
and then recaptured by Israeli forces

Here's a reminder of what we said four months ago, in the wake of these especially cold-blooded killings:

"For those of us who can still summon up a sense of outrage after so much terror, so much hatred, so much hypocrisy, there's the matter of the so-called moderate Palestinian Arabs and their response. In today's New York Times, the Palestinian Authority's prime minister, Salam Fayyad, expresses his condemnation of the murders. These were offenses against the noble Islamic religion. No, sorry, that's not what he said. The perpetrators betrayed the noble and moral aspirations of the Palestinian people. No, sorry, that's not what he said either. Acts of terrorism and jihadist murder like these undermine the Arab right to a two-state solution. No, sorry again, that's not what he said. What Salam Fayyad, a man who knows his people very well, said is:  “We condemn this operation, which contradicts Palestinian interests and the efforts of the Palestinian leadership to garner international support for the national rights of our people.”  As so often in the past, the "condemnation" (which is really not condemnation but tactical criticism) is entirely focused on the effect it might have on other people's support. Where you stand on terror, terrorism and terrorists says everything about your morality, decency and values. The Palestinian Arab position, in its moderate and other forms, is out there for all to see."

Small wonder the PA had so few qualms about freeing the Jew-killers barely four months later.

We don't know where the organs of the European Union stand on the morality of the murders, the release of the killers, or their recapture and reimprisonment. We do know that at about the same time Abbas, president of one of the two Palestinian Arab regimes, was signing the order yesterday for the release of the terrorists from a PA jail to appease the leaders of the other Palestinian Arab regime, he was spending happy-face time with the EU's foreign minister, Catherine Ashton.

The image of arch-terrorist Arafat beaming down at the two of them seems quite apt in the circumstances.