04-Feb-19: Intruders

Image Source

As Israel announces, belatedly, the start of establishing a major barrier to protect the southern parts of the state ["Israel starts construction on 20-foot-high fence surrounding Gaza", Times of Israel, February 3, 2019], we're seeing a spate of news reports reminding Israelis why security of that sort is indispensable.

Two Jordanians cross into Israel, are arrested by army | Unarmed pair taken for questioning to determine why they crossed border, military says
Times of Israel | 3 February 2019, 2:01 pm | Two Jordanian nationals were arrested early Sunday after they crossed illegally into the country, the Israel Defense Forces said. According to a statement from the military, IDF soldiers identified the two suspects overnight, after they crossed the border fence. The troops stopped and arrested the pair near the border, the statement said, adding that they were carrying no weapons. They have been taken for questioning to determine why they crossed the border. The statement did not specify where along the border the incident took place.

Then this

Palestinian with knife nabbed among Hebron tourists | Armed suspect tries to enter Tomb of the Patriarchs shrine, is separated by police from group of visitors
Times of Israel | 3 February 2019, 2:09 pm
A young Palestinian man trying to gain access to a West Bank holy site on Sunday aroused the attention of police when they spotted him in the middle of a group of tourists entering the Tomb of the Patriarchs, police said. Border Police officers arrested the suspect, a man in his twenties, after noticing he didn’t belong with the group and was acting suspiciously in an apparent bid to gain entry to the site, in the West Bank city of Hebron, police said. Police officers called him aside for a more thorough inspection before realizing he was carrying the blade. “When the suspicion grew stronger, the soldiers aimed their weapons and at that point the suspect drew the knife that had been concealed in his clothes, threw it to the ground and raised his hands,” a police statement said. Police said the suspect, a resident of Hebron, admitted during his initial questioning that he intended to carry out a stabbing attack.

And these

Palestinian crosses into Israel from Gaza, is arrested | Incident follows previous day’s 3 attempts to jump border fence on 3 borders — from Gaza, Lebanon and Jordan — and day after Israel begins final stage of barrier construction
Times of Israel | February 4, 2019, 9:04 am | IDF troops on the Gaza border apprehended a Palestinian man who crossed the border fence into Israel from the southern Strip, the military said in a statement Monday morning. The man was searched by soldiers and taken into custody. The IDF said that a knife was found near the point where the man crossed the fence, and “apparently belonged to the suspect.”  [...] Monday’s incident is the fourth in a 24-hour period in which individuals were caught attempting to cross into Israel on various borders. Five youths who crossed from northern Gaza into Israel on Sunday night remain in custody and are being questioned. On Sunday, IDF troops arrested two Lebanese men who crossed the border into Israel near the divided border village of Ghajar and were discovered to be carrying 11 kilograms (25 pounds) of hashish. Earlier Sunday, two Jordanian nationals were arrested after they crossed illegally from Jordan, the army said. They were carrying no weapons. Their reasons for attempting to jump over the border fence are not known.

Israelis tend to be cautious about how effective defensive security measures are. The latest sabre-rattling from Iran reminds us of why:

Iran said to put ‘guided warheads’ on missiles that can reach Israel | State media says the new Khoramshahr 2 is highly accurate and can carry two-ton payloads up to 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles)
Times of Israel | February 4, 2019
Iran has equipped its most advanced, longest-range missiles, which can hit Israel and US bases in the Gulf, with new precision guided warheads, state media reported Sunday. According to the unsourced report in the Fars news agency, the new home-made guided warheads have now been attached to the Khoramshahr, a missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles.) “The new generation of missiles with guided warheads has been named Khoramshahr 2 and they can be controlled until hitting the target and are able to carry warheads weighing nearly 2 tons,” the report said. It said that the new warheads had previously been mounted on the shorter range Emad, Qadr and Qiam missiles. The first generation of Khoramshahr was unveiled in 2017.  Iran says all of its missiles are designed to carry conventional warheads only and has limited their range to a maximum of 2,000 kilometers, although commanders say they have the technology to go further. That makes them only medium-range but still sufficient to reach Israel or US bases in the Gulf. The report comes a day after Iran said it had successful fired a new long-range cruise missile, amid events marking 40 years since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The missile, dubbed Hoveyzeh, was described as a high-precision weapon capable of flying at low altitudes and able to carry a significant payload up to a distance of 1,200 kilometers (840 miles.)

These news reports tend to get somewhat overlooked outside Israel.

09-Mar-16: A security barrier, reconsidered

Standing outside the International Court of Justice in The Hague in February
2004, Arnold Roth, holding a photo of his murdered child,
is interviewed by BBC News

In the midst of violent drama being visited upon us by our neighbors, the government of Israel seems to be on the verge of acting on a matter that we have wanted to see happen for many years.

For background, see "11-Oct-07: Reacting to 7 more frustrated mass-murders". And "5-Oct-08: Learning the lessons of the checkpoints". And "28-Apr-12: Security barrier proves yet again to be a life-saver". And this interview from 2004 in which Arnold Roth explained to CNN how security fences can look to people who have personal experience of life without security:

She [our murdered daughter Malki] wasn't caught in any crossfire. She wasn't a bystander. She was the target. People outside of this country have to understand that, that whatever we do to protect our lives has got to be seen as being our prerogative and perfectly legitimate. We want out government to do whatever is necessary to keep our lives safe and our children safe... ["Crisis in the Middle East - The Israeli Barrier", CNN, February 22, 2004]

Now today's news:

Israel will complete construction of the separation barrier in the Jerusalem area and the southern West Bank following Tuesday's terror attacks, the Prime Minister's Office announced.
During security consultations held by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister's Office said it was immediately decided to close gaps in the separation barrier in the Jerusalem area, and to complete construction of the barrier in the Tarkumiya area in the South Hebron Hills.
Gaps in the separation barrier are used by Palestinians to enter Israel illegally without the proper permits. The assailant behind the Jaffa attack entered Israel illegally, from a West Bank village near Qalqilya. In recent months, opposition chair MK Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) called on Netanyahu to close the gaps and complete construction of the barrier... [Haaretz, today]

Most Israelis know to ignore the inevitable shrill criticism accusing us of apartheid and land-grabbing, particularly when it emanates from people who can't quite figure out how to condemn the people doing the stabbing, the shooting and the vehicle-ramming.

But at the end of the day, if fewer innocent people are going to be hurt on both sides by the completion of a half-built physical fence, then let it be.

4-May-12: Fewer terror attacks? It's no accident

The community of Elon Moreh

A week ago, we wrote ("28-Apr-12: Security barrier proves yet again to be a life-saver") about the small victories of an alert security force confronted with terrorists in ordinary clothing carrying weapons of extreme hostility in their bags and on their bodies.

This morning there's more. 

Two Palestinian Arab men, reported to be in their 20s, were apprehended by Israeli Border Guard personnel yesterday (Thursday) near busy Tapuah Junction in the Shomron (Samaria). They were found to have explosive pipe-bomb devices and knives in their backpacks. The bombs were safely exploded by sappers and none of the harm which the terrorists intended to cause materialized. They are now in custody.

Then in the small hours of this morning (Friday), an alert security guard protecting the Elon Moreh community (population: 1,300), also in the Shomron,  alerted soldiers to the presence of a Palestinian Arab man approaching the security fence. He was promptly arrested by soldiers from the IDF's Kfir Brigade and found to be armed with a knife 14 centimeters (6 inches) long [sources: here, here and here]. A previous attack by a pair of would-be terrorists equipped with knives was foiled just eight weeks ago in the same place. At the time, we wrote:

A thriving Jewish village of some 1,200 people today, Elon Moreh is in the vicinity of Itamar, Har Bracha and Yitzhar... For at least two millenia, Jews have traditionally reckoned Elon Moreh to be the place where Abraham had been told by the Almghty: “To your descendants will I give this land” (Genesis 12:6) and where Abraham's grandson Jacob later purchased land (Genesis 33:19). Skeptics will question whether Jacob and Abraham heard this or even whether they existed. But it's far more difficult for them to deny that Jews have held this belief about their historical forebears as part of Judaism's written tradition stretching back far longer than most of today's cultures have had a written tradition... If only all terror attacks ended as neatly and successfully as today's.

We wish Elon Moreh's residents and ourselves a peaceful Sabbath. 

28-Apr-12: Security barrier proves yet again to be a life-saver

Hawara [Image Source]

We have more than enough reason to write here about the plain dishonesty that seems to characterize much of the criticism of Israel's security checkpoints strategy. We wrote about this last Saturday night when armed terrorists were stopped at a security crossing en route to carrying out an attack on Israeli civilians - see "21-Apr-12: Stopped two more armed jihadists". 

That was only the latest in a terribly long line of occasions when the existence of the part-built barrier, plus the network of manned crossing points through which Palestinian Arabs are frequently required to pass, plus the alertness of service personnel, and especially Israel's Border Guard, all came together to prevent another terrorist outrage. 

Tonight (Saturday) there's another.

IDF troops intercepted a Palestinian Arab at the Hawara crossing a couple of hours ago. Hawara is just south of Nablus or Shechem as it has been known for several thousand years in Jewish literature. Ynet reports that the Arab was found to be carrying two explosive devices. These were later blown up by sappers in a controlled detonation and the suspected terrorist was taken in for interrogation by security authorities.

Security personnel standing guard at Hawara have been attacked with guns, knives, bombs, troubled children and acid. They have intercepted all of the above, along with numerous other kinds of weapons of destruction. [Have a look at our comments on a previous Hawara incident: "3-Oct-11: So do those security checkpoints serve their purpose or not?"] 

In 2004, they stopped a 14 year-old, somewhat learning-disabled Palestinian Arab boy called Hussam Muhammad Bilal Abdu. In an interview, the child said that after years of bullying by classmates, he wanted to reach the paradise he had learned about in Islamic teachings. So Hussam was induced by people in his community to place an 8 kilogram explosive belt on his body under his coat and to carry it through Hawara and onward into those parts of Israel where large numbers of Jewish women and children can be found. He was in a literal sense turned into a walking bomb, like so many who have been stopped since then by Israeli forces.

We wrote this at the time:

The great gift made to this child by the Palestinian Arab education system was, by his own admission, to impregnate his mind with a vision of sex with heavenly virgins. That, and a daily regimen of Fatah-inspired hate training, was what it took to turn a child into a bomb. (Fatah is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority. Fatah claimed responsibility for the Hussam Abdu outrage, and freely acknowledged equipping him and sending him.)

Tragically, it's all just as true today. If you have a free moment, please take a look at what we wrote some three and a half years ago about the same security checkpoint: 5-Oct-08: Learning the lessons of the checkpoints.

Israel's still-incomplete security barrier and its multiple checkpoints (as we wrote here a week ago) constitute one of this country's most effective counter-terrorism measures. The numbers put this beyond doubt. We live here and for us, this matters very much.

3-Oct-11: So do those security checkpoints serve their purpose or not?

Hawara checkpoint, some years ago

There's a report this afternoon (Monday) from the Hawara security checkpoint near Nablus.

IDF forces arrested a Palestinian Arab carrying a 10 centimeter long knife and an improvised gun. He is now being questioned by security officials over the possibility (as Ynet puts it) that he was intending to carry out a terror attack.

Notwithstanding the constant criticism from anti-Israel sources, Israel's part-constructed security barrier and its multiple checkpoints constitute one of this country's most effective counter-terrorism measures.

The numbers put this beyond doubt. That critics can - and obsessively do - call it an "Apartheid Wall" reveals something about the shortage of intellectual honesty in such attacks. The fact that the barrier and the checkpoints have had a clearly positive effect on terror statistics, greatly reducing deaths and injury on both sides, ought to be central to any discussion about them, but is not.

There's useful background on the issues in a monograph written by Prof. Gerald Steinberg called "The UN, the ICJ and the Separation Barrier: War by Other Means" [online here].

12-Nov-08: When it's 'quiet' here, it looks like this

IDF forces detected a Palestinian terror cell on its way to infiltrate into Israel via the Gaza border fence this afternoon.

The cell's four or five armed members, equipped with Kalashnikov rifles and grenades, approached from a spot just east of Khan Younis and were spotted planting explosives. Israeli paratroopers identified them and opened fire. Four Gazans are dead; several more are injured.

AFP reports that the dead heroes were sent by the peace-loving Hamas regime that rules the Gaza region.

As we wrote here a couple of days ago, Hamas successfully peddled a story to credulous journalists on Saturday of this week that "they would begin cracking down on the fire emerging from the Gaza Strip". This is perfectly accurate if 'cracking down' means funding, encouraging, planning and executing the fire.
Possibly as a means of masking their attack, the Gazans launched a mortar shell assault on the Kissufim crossing at about the same time as the gunman action a few hours ago. And as of now (early evening, Wednesday) there's a search underway for additional Gazan terrorists in the same vicinity.

Today's four dead Gazan Hamas operatives already feature in news reports as additional 'victims' of Israeli nastiness. But the reality is that in this ongoing war, they are armed-to-the-teeth, religiously-inspired barbarians on a mission to strike at any civilian targets within reach.

Their goal is not capture territory or engage the enemy in battle - and certainly not to establish a state for their wives, children and society - but to sow terror and fear among Israelis and others unfortunate enough to be living within firing range of their fortresses and underground arsenals.

What sort of terror and fear?

Eight days ago, the IDF found and blew-up a tunnel created by Hamas 'activists' running from inside Gaza to the Israeli side of the fence, intended to facilitate the kidnapping of Israelis - like the raid that resulted in a teen-age Israeli serviceman, Gilad Shalit, being taken hostage by Hamas terrorists two years ago and held ever since.

This past weekend's tunnel was immediately taken out of service with the help of Israeli explosives. It was certainly not the only such tunnel in service, and it's to be expected that similar shut-downs will happen in the future.

The Hamas Gazan regime, whose stocks of missiles are now enormously replenished after five months of cease-fire with the Israelis, delivered 60 rocket attacks in the past week as its response to the recent tunnel liquidation. Its rocket barrages were intended to emphasize just how much these people want a better education for their children, affordable health-care for their parents, and a brighter future for their community.

It's so hard not to be cynical about their self-destructive hell-hole.