06-Feb-20: A day of rising apprehension

The scene of the vehicle-ramming at First Station, Jerusalem,
Credit: United Hatzalah [Image Source]

Wednesday February 5, 2019

• The terrorists of Hamas issued a call to Palestinian Arabs "for escalating confrontations with the occupation and its settlers and fighting their assaults against the land and holy sites, especially the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque" [Times of Israel].
• Palestinian Media Watch publicized a brief video on TikTok – a social network popular among children - that encourages murdering Israelis by means of graphic animated recreations of actual terror attacks: four specific Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks that involved drive-by shootings, rammings and knifings. The appalling animation clip is here.

Thursday February 6, 2019

• In a pre-dawn, Thursday morning vehicle ramming attack on Jerusalem's David Remez Street, adjacent to the popular First Station restaurant and entertainment compound, a terrorist slammed his car into a group of IDF Golani soldiers brought to Jerusalem for their swearing-in ceremony. (They were walking around just prior to their early-morning ceremony at the Kotel, the Western Wall in the nearby Old City.) Twelve are injured, one of them now in serious condition. Times of Israel says he is in serious but stable condition, unconscious and connected to a respirator in the intensive care unit. A search is underway for the attacker. The vehicle used in the 2 o'clock attack had Israeli license plates and was later found abandoned in the Palestinian Arab village of Beit Jala, adjacent to Bethlehem, a few minutes drive from the site of the ramming. "Clashes broke out in the village and the surrounding area as Israeli troops searched for the driver, who had fled the scene after hitting the soldiers. Palestinian media reported that Israeli troops seized security cameras around Bethlehem, apparently as part of the search effort" [Times of Israel].
• Thursday noon: An Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack at the Lions' Gate in Jerusalem's Old City resulted in an Israeli being wounded. According to Ynet, he is a 38-year-old Border Guard policeman. The shooter was shot dead by other police in the vicinity. 
• Thursday mid-afternoon, an Israeli man was wounded by gunfire in an evident drive-by shooting on a road near Dolev, an Israeli community in the Binyamin region. The shooter is still on the loose. Hamodia says the victim, an IDF soldier in his 20s, is lightly wounded and getting treatment at Sheba Tel Hashomer hospital near Tel Aviv. Hamodia says the shooting happened at the Post Intersection, named for the post office located nearby during the time of the British Mandate. It's today a busy intersection, near the Palestinian Arab villages of Ras Karkar and Kharbatha Bani Harith, and the Israeli communities of Neria and Na’aleh. Ras Karkar is now under IDF closure as forces search for the terrorists.
• Thursday 5:00 pm: The IDF is positioning an extra battalion in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) to respond to the upsurge in Arab-on-Israel violence. Times of Israel says IDF battalions normally include several hundred soldiers.

The post-attack scene this afternoon in the Old City [Image Source]

Few doubt the Trump conflict-resolution proposals announced on January 28 are what has brought the Fatah and Hamas leadership of the Palestinian Arabs to encourage fresh and escalating violence. Times of Israel says

"In the week and a half since the plan’s release, the military has noted a significant increase in violence in the West Bank, with regular riots, rock-throwing and violent opposition to Israeli arrest raids...

We've been down this route enough times already to know that the Arab side act as if the threat to them of peace is more dangerous than war and fighting. The Palestinian Authority (PA) regime rejected the US proposals before they were even announced. Speaking a day before the plan was released, and before he had any way to know what it contained, PA prime minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said: "We reject it and we demand the international community not be a partner to it".

Writing in Fathom Journal this month, Alex Ryvchin of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry writes that

be sure, it is the Palestinians who have the most to gain from securing a deal. The Jewish people have their national home – a stable, successful, innovative, liberal-democratic state that despite facing incomparable threats and challenges, and despite having virtually no natural resources compared to its neighbours, has matured into an economic and military power in just 71 years. But the Palestinians remain stateless and stricken by all the consequences of such a condition... calling the plan a ‘hoax’ and a ‘fraud’ and summoning their people to a new ‘day of rage’...PA Prime Minister Shtayyeh delivered a strikingly candid explanation, perhaps unwittingly, for why the Palestinians, who claim to seek independence above all else, are rejecting a proposal to give them just that. ‘It is nothing but a plan to finish off the Palestinian cause,’ he said. Herein lies the answer to the vexing question of why a people that claims they want nothing more than a home of their own and an end to the conflict, have rejected five comprehensive offers of statehood and have now taken to rejecting new offers before they are even presented. The conflict is not a territorial dispute to be settled by delineating borders and agreeing land swaps. It is a clash between the Jewish national movement which desperately craved a scrap of land to call their own so that they and their contributions to humanity should not vanish from this Earth, and the ‘Palestinian cause,’ which seeks no precise outcome beyond thwarting its rival, and holding out, digging in, struggling on, resisting. 

Few of the Israelis we know think these irreconcilable outlooks are going to be somehow resolved in the foreseeable future.

UPDATE 6:30 pm Thursday February 6, 2019: The alleged vehicle rammer was arrested this afternoon at Gush Etzion Junction, south of Jerusalem. He's said [Times of Israel] to be a male, 28, a resident of East Jerusalem's A-Tur neighbourhood and with no previous terror convictions.

UPDATE 9:00 pm Thursday February 6, 2019: The First Station ramming suspect is now identified as Sanad al-Tourman, who according to Israel's Channel 13 TV news operates a flower shop in a Jerusalem shopping mall. No further details for now.

04-Mar-19: Pre-dawn vehicle ramming attack on Israelis north of Ramallah

There has been yet another vehicle-ramming attack on Israelis this morning (Monday). According to a breaking Times of Israel report [here], a vehicle in which three persons were traveling was the weapon by which an attack was launched on Israeli security personnel before dawn today near an Arab village it names as N'ima.

Two injured Israelis were evacuated from the scene by helicopter and ambulance for emergency medical care at, we believe, Tel Hashomer Medical Center. One is said to be an IDF soldier whom it describes as being seriously inured. A member of the Border Guard (Mishmar Hagvul in Hebrew) is said to be lightly hurt.

Two of the attack-vehicle's three occupants are said to have been killing and a third wounded. The report quotes an IDF statement “from an initial investigation it appears to be a (terror) attack.”

A Hebrew-language social media report says the overnight attack at about 3:30 this morning in the Binyamin region was at Talmon/Dolev Junction which is about half way between the Israeli community of Dolev and an Arab village (of some 3,500 people) called Kafr Ni'ma (ניעמה) located about 13 km north-west of Ramallah. The less-injured service member is reported by first responders to be about 19. The more seriously-injured soldier is said, in an IDF statement [here], to be an officer. Haaretz says he's in his early twenties and in critical condition after being run-over. No names yet.

A Ynet report adds:

"The troops had stopped their vehicle at the roadside at night—Israeli media reported it had broken down—and were deliberately struck, the military said."

From the Palestinian Arab side, an Arabic language tweet at about 9:00 am Monday from the SAFA Palestinian Press Agency [here] quotes the PA's Ministry of Health about what it calls

"the martyrdom of two citizens and the wounding of a third after the occupation shot them near the village of Kafr Nehmeh west of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, and no information until the moment about the identity of the martyrs and the injured."

("Occupied" Ramallah is where the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority has its capital. Fatah and Hamas are deadly rivals. SAFA, based in the Gaza Strip, used to operate a Facebook page but this was shut down by Facebook about a year ago.)

03-May-16: Near Dolev, a vehicle-ramming attack on Israelis tonight

Haparsa Junction as it looked in reports of last year's murder there
of Danny Gonen [Image Source]

Another Arab-on-Israeli car ramming attack took place this evening. The victims are three Israelis serving in the IDF at the checkpoint located at Haparsa Junction near Dolev, a Jewish community in the Binyamin region north of Jerusalem and about 9 km west of Ramallah, an Arab city where the PA has its administrative offices.

According to Times of Israel, the three were struck by a passing car. IDF forces "responded to the imminent threat" and shot the assailant dead at the scene, according to an IDF spokesman. Haparsa has been repeatedly in the news in recent months for Arab-on-Israeli fire-bomb and rock-hurling attacks. [Click for recent Twitter reports.]

One of the soldiers is in serious condition and has been airlifted to Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer Hospital near Petach Tikva. The other two have moderately injuries and received emergency care at the scene.

Maan News Agency quoting Arab sources says a Palestinian Arab driving a mid-sized truck (and they have a photo that indeed shows a truck here) on a road between the villages of Beitunia and Ein Arik hit three Israeli soldiers by accident with his vehicle while they were crossing the road:

The driver fled the scene "fearing for his life," witnesses said. Israeli forces chased him and a separate unit erected a barrier further down the road. Israeli forces fired on him repeatedly and he was left bleeding from several bullet wounds inside his car without receiving treatment until he died, before Israeli forces transferred the body to an unknown location, witnesses said. The Palestinian was later identified as Ahmed Riyad Abd al-Aziz Shehada, 36, from the Qalandiya refugee camp in the Ramallah district... [Maan News Agency, tonight]

A terror attack at about the same location near Dolev ten months ago ["16-Jul-15: Abbas' expensive PA reward-for-terror funding scheme pays dividend yet again"] took the life of Danny Gonen, earned explicit admiration from Hamas and turned out to have been done by a salaried employee of the PA. 

At this stage, we know nothing about this evening's perpetrator beyond what we wrote above. But since he died in the attack, it's a certainty that posters celebrating his martyrdom are being prepared at this very moment in some Arab print shop.

16-Jul-15: Abbas' expensive PA reward-for-terror funding scheme pays dividend yet again

European funding of terror is not a mere slogan or a notion
but a lethal ongoing scandal with a bitter price [Image Source]

A month ago, we wrote here ["19-Jun-15: Reports of sniper attack on Israelis north of Jerusalem"] of a shooting attack on two young Israeli men visiting a popular natural spring near the Israeli community of Dolev, a short drive north-west of Jerusalem.

One of the two, Danny Gonen, died soon afterwards of his injuries.

The Islamist terrorists of Hamas disclaimed any connection but offered evidently-sincere congratulations to the shooter and those who sent him.

We also mentioned that the authorities in the town in which the deceased man lived then embarked on a series of actions ("26-Jun-15: Spring of hope and revenge") that, while understandable from an Israeli standpoint, likely baffled people less familiar with the Israeli ethos.

Yesterday we learned ["Terrorist who killed Israeli arrested in West Bank", Haaretz, July 15, 2015] that the shooter has been arrested. And he was not alone. Mohammad Abu Shahin, 39, from Kalandia will be charged with the murder.

In the past weeks a number of Palestinians from the Ramallah area have been apprehended who admitted they were involved in the shooting attack, as well as several other attacks. Abu Shahin, who was imprisoned in the past for involvement in stabbing and shooting attacks, is a Fatah-Tanzim militant who receives a salary from the Palestinian Authority. Among those arrested was Asama Asad, another Tanzim member who was released in the Gilad Shalit deal.

Everyone released in the Shalit Deal, without exception we are reliably told, gets admitted into the PA's reward-for-terror scheme. They call it something else, but that's what it is.

At Ynet they add that Abu Shahin is

a member of the Palestinian Authority's elite Force 17 unit. He was imprisoned between 2006-2008 after confessing his intention to carry out a terror attack. During questioning, Abu Shaheen confessed to the shooting and said he had collected intelligence before committing the attack. He also admitted to six other shooting attacks in the last year, including one in November 2014 in Al-Ram, in which a soldier was wounded. The five were arrested about a week and a half after the attack, when troops raided the suspects' homes... The attack took place on June 19, when Gonen and a friend were driving away from a spring near the Dolev settlement in the Binyamin area of the West Bank. A Palestinian man signaled for them to stop as if to ask for help before firing at them from point-blank range, critically wounding Gonen... [Israeli security forces arrest terror cell behind murder of Danny Gonen | Ynet, July 15, 2015] 

More on Force 17 here. The others arrested:

• Asraf Amar, 24, a member of the PA's military Intelligence
• Osama (or Asama) Assad, 29, a Fatah member and convicted terrorist who was released by Israel in the 2011 Shalit Deal
• Muhammed Aduan, 37 

Mahmoud Abbas greets - with hugs and kisses - a long line of terrorists
freed that day from their Israeli prison cells. The PA's European-funded
reward-for-terror bonuses were issued to them soon afterwards
[Image Source: CNN Video grab]

(A related matter: prisoners released in the 2011 act of Hamas extortion known as the Shalit Deal who are subsequently arrested on terrorism charges are supposed, under the terms of the commutation, to be sent right back to serve the terms which had been conditionally commuted prior to the deal being done. There have been some seventy such re-arrests. Are they all now back behind bars and serving out the balance of their original un-commuted sentences? It's a very serious question. Write to us [thisongoingwar@gmail.com] if you are interested to know.)

One of the key points to arise from these arrests is the involvement in the killing of people receiving Palestinian Authority reward-for-terror payments. It's a subject that simply incenses us. At the same time, we have noticed that leaves the people - mainly European taxpayers, European government officials, and European politicians - who fund it mostly unmoved, for reasons that are simply beyond us. For background, please re-visit these posts:

• 20-May-11: Rewarding the Palestinian Arab terrorists: is this being done in your name?
• 28-Jul-11: Taxpayer-funded salaries to convicted Palestinian Arab terrorists. What a good idea
• 4-Sep-12: Where's the shame? How much of your tax dollars went to fund the pension of our child's murderer? More than you probably thought
• 08-Feb-15: Foreign money and the Palestinian Arab terror it buys
• 10-Mar-15: The not-so-moderate Palestinian Authority and the terrorism it enables
• 02-Jun-15: The obvious, petty lies that keep European money flowing into the hands of the PA's terrorists

UPDATE: The indefatigable BBCwatch which does an excellent job of noticing such things points out [here] that both the shooting attack and the murder in June went unreported at "The World's Radio Station", and so have the arrests.

22-Jun-15: Deconstructing the Ramadan stabbings and shootings

Funeral of Danny Gonen, victim of Friday's shooting attack [Image Source]

Here in Jerusalem, it's difficult to escape awareness of the current state of elevated tension.

Yesterday (Sunday) at one of the most traveled entrances to the Old City, a young Arab from Sa’ir, a town in the West Bank near Hebron, executed a frenzied stabbing attack on a Mishmar Hagvul (Border Guard) service man around 10:00 am. [See "21-Jun-15: Sunday morning Jerusalem stabbing"] His victim, aged 20, has multiple stab wounds to the neck and chest, including one near his heart and underwent emergency surgery yesterday evening. Today's reports say he is "showing signs of improvement" at Shaarei Zedek Medical Center.

The knife-man's name is Yasser Yassin Tarwa. He too is hospitalized with "life-threatening injuries" after his victim managed to shoot him. And he too is getting the best medical care Israeli hospitals can offer, in his case at the world-renowned Hadassah Medical Center Ein Karem, Jerusalem. This morning, he was said to be in critical condition, sedated and on a respirator. Video clips of Arabs wailing and praising as the blood seeps from his wounds [here for instance] leave little doubt that, dead or alive, he has been ushered into the Palestinian Arab pantheon of "resistance" "heroes". It's far less likely that the medical team at the Israeli hospital where his life now hangs in the balance will get similar respect.

A Hamas website has been running this
photo of Tarwa, the perpetrator of Sunday
morning's knife attack. Those are Hamas regalia
draped around his neck [Image Source]

Times of Israel reports today that

Hamas praised Sunday’s attack, though it did not take credit for it, as photos published online indicated the assailant was a member or sympathizer of the Islamist movement. The Facebook page of Hamas website al-Resalah.net posted two photos of 18-year-old Tarwa from the town of Sa’ir near Hebron. In one, Tarwa is seen wearing a Hamas scarf and headband, and camouflage pants,,, 

Last night (Sunday) in another Jerusalem-area act of Palestinian Arab terrorism, an Israeli civilian bus traveling between the Israeli community of Adam, on Jerusalem's northern edge, and the Arab village of Hizma along Highway 437 came under rock and firebomb attack. The windshield was shattered and the driver was injured, but kept driving to ensure his passengers were spared further injury, damage and apprehension. He was rushed by a rescue team the Jerusalem's other Hadassah hospital, on Mount Scopus. The rescue vehicle came under rock and fire-bomb attack too.

And as we noted on Friday ["19-Jun-15: Reports of sniper attack on Israelis north of Jerusalem"], two young Israeli men came under fire from a Palestinian Arab shooter Friday afternoon. One of the two, Danny Gonen, 25, an electrical engineering student from the central Israeli city of Lod, died of his injuries at Tel Hashomer Hospital after being rushed there by IDF helicopter . The second victim was moderately hurt in the attack and is being treated at Tel Hashomer. The two had been traveling in their car after visiting a natural spring in the hills near Dolev, when a Palestinian Arab flagged them down, asking for assistance. Without warning, he "fearlessly" brandished a gun from a bag he was carrying and opened fire at his unarmed victims from point-blank range. A wide search is underway at this moment but he has not yet been apprehended.

Ron Ben Yishai, a respected veteran Israeli journalist, war correspondent and analyst, has some insightful observations in an article published last night. His argument (see "Not exactly a 'lone wolf' attack" [Ron Ben-Yishai | Ynet | June 21, 2015) is that while the term "lone wolf" tends to be used a great deal when an Arab stabs or stones or uses his car or bulldozer to run down and injure or kill civilian Israelis, the words deceive. What's really going on is more complex than that simple descriptor .

The security authorities are doing what they can. In Ben Yishai's words, the police are

flooding the targeted areas (mostly in East Jerusalem) with thousands of policemen whose very presence deters and prevents attacks. Unfortunately, not all of these police officers are patrolling the streets with bullet-proof vests and vigilance, and so on occasion a Border Police officer or a soldier falls prey to a lone terrorist.

Such attacks, he says, come against a background which includes several predictable, repeating themes.

The first and most important of them is what he calls the "religious fervor among the Muslims on the holy month of Ramadan" (Ramadan - literally "scorching heat" or "dryness", and referring to a 29-30 day period of "spiritual reflection, improvement and increased devotion and worship", began this past Thursday and continues for a month).

It is not just a matter of the sermons they hear, or of their religious inclinations, but also the lengthy fast, the extreme changes to daily lives and maintaining their day-to-day routine while not sleeping at night - all of these create a situation in which the Muslim street all over the world, including in the Palestinian Authority, sensitivity and anger run high. This psychological analysis is important because it explains a significant amount of attacks that seemingly reveal no rational reason for the murderer to choose to risk his life and his surroundings.

Next, the copy-cat phenomenon: one act of murder or terror begets another, mainly among those "already feeling anger or religious fervor, or wanted to prove something to those around them".

Then there is the inspiration channeled at them from the established Islamist terror organizations: Hamas and Islamic Jihad in particular. Though he does not explicitly say so, their messages broadcast encouragement for acts of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel violence round the clock, round the year. They provide the essential infrastructure without which the other elements would have smaller impact.

He describes his fourth factor as "the wave of Islamist zeal currently spreading over the entire Middle East." It's a zeal which evidently does not pause to observe Ramadan as this handful of headline reports from the past few days indicates:

• Seven killed as Taliban attacks Afghan parliament | Militants rebuffed requests from senior clerics to halt attacks during Ramadan, (June 22, 2015)
• Four militants killed in raid on Somali government site | The al Qaeda-aligned group has in the past stepped up attacks during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan (June 22, 2015)
• At least 14 killed in Aleppo barrel-bomb attack | Syrian army has increased its attacks since the beginning of Ramadan (June 22, 2015)
• Roadside Bomb Kills at Least 12 Civilians in Afghanistan | Minivan struck IED just before Iftar, the evening meal when Muslims break their fast during Ramadan (June 22, 2015)
• Five Terrorist Blasts Rock Sanaa on Ramadan Eve, Claim 31 Civilians (June 18, 2015)

19-Jun-15: Reports of sniper attack on Israelis north of Jerusalem [UPDATED]

The scene of this afternoon's attack: first responders try to
save the shooting victims' lives

At this stage all we know is this, via Israel National News:

Two people have been wounded, one of them critically, in a shooting attack close to the town of Dolev in the Binyamin region, north of Jerusalem. Paramedics and a large team of IDF security forces are at the scene - including at least one military helicopter - after responding to reports that terrorists had opened fire on an Israeli vehicle at 4:15 p.m. Friday afternoon. It is believed an Arab sniper targeted the victims; one is in critical condition, while the other it described in light-to-moderate condition.

Haaretz says the two Israelis are in their twenties and live in "central Israel" which is Haaretz-speak for the greater Tel-Aviv area.

A statement by Magen David Adom, Israel's Red Cross, says one of the injured is unconscious and in a critical condition. The other one was lightly wounded after he was shot in the legs, the statement added. Israel's Channel 2 TV news says someone in a passing car opened fire at the Israelis who were in their car, visiting Ein Buvin spring, a popular destination on a glorious early summer day, which is what we are having now.

Dolev, a community of about 1,350 people, is located in the suburbs of northern Jerusalem.

UPDATE Friday June 19, 2015: Just as the sun is setting on a beautiful day and the Sabbath begins to make her way into our part of the world: Times of Israel delivers the bitter news that the more critically-injured of the two men shot by a Palestinian Arab gunman a few hours ago has died of his wounds:

The 25-year-old was shot in the upper body near the settlement of Dolev, northwest of Jerusalem. He was found unconscious and transferred to Tel Hashomer Hospital by IDF helicopter where he died over an hour after the attack. A second man was moderately hurt in the attack and was also being treated at Tel Hashomer. A large deployment of soldiers aided by Israel Police were currently searching for at least one shooter. The two men in their mid-20s were traveling in their car after visiting a spring near Dolev, when they were flagged down by a Palestinian man, seemingly asking them for help, and shot at point-blank range. [Times of Israel, today]

We see a report (via Twitter) just now that Hamas has extended its congratulations on the lethal attack this afternoon but stopped short of claiming credit.

13-Nov-14: More knife attacks but this time the attackers are intercepted

Dolev, home to about 180 Israeli families

A small insight into the less-featured Palestinian Arab violence that you are unlikely to see on your evening news show:

• "Police arrested a Palestinian teen in the West Bank on Wednesday night and said he admitted he was headed to Jerusalem to carry out a stabbing attack on a bus driver. The suspect, a 17-year-old resident of Ramallah, was stopped near the the Dolev settlement and was found carrying a knife and a screwdriver in his bag, police said. During questioning he said that he planned to hitchhike to Jerusalem and then stab a bus driver in the capital. The suspect was transferred to the Shin Bet security services for further questioning." [Source: Times of Israel today]
• "In a similar incident Wednesday night, a Palestinian in his 20s was arrested and taken in for questioning, after police found a knife on his person. At the entrance to the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron, Border Patrol forces stopped the young man who had aroused suspicions. Upon inspection they found a commando knife under his shirt. "We recognized suspicious walking, and we called the man to stop," security forces explained. "We asked him to lift up his shirt when he was a few feet away. As soon as he did so, we saw a commando knife on his waist." When Border Patrol forces saw the knife on the body of the suspect, they cocked their weapons at him. The suspect panicked and threw the knife on the floor. The fighters conducted a thorough search of his body, and eventually the suspect was arrested. Despite attempts to communicate while the suspect was on the ground, ha had apparently drank alcohol shortly before and did not cooperate with law enforcement. The suspect was then brought to the Hevron police precinct for further interrogation. [Source: Israel National News, today]