18-Aug-20: An Arab-on-Israeli knifing in Jerusalem's Old City and a dead assailant

Screen cap from the Israel Police video report [here]

The general sense of fury being projected by a wounded and failed Palestinian Authority leadership in the wake of Israel's suddenly open 'normalized' relationship with the United Arab Emirates received its depressingly predictable expression last night.

Here in Jerusalem, near Lion's Gate (שער האריות) in the Old City at around 8:40 pm Monday night, shortly before Muslim evening prayers and close to the Bab Huta entrance (one of several) to the Temple Mount, an attacker wearing a protective face mask launched an explosive knifing attack. His victim was a 19 year old armed Israeli security officer who came out of it with moderate injuries but alive and recovering.

The attacker was almost immediately shot by security personnel and died of his injuries. Palestinian Arab news reports like this one predictably say the young Arrab was 'executed'.

The security camera video [here] makes plain the usual procedure: young Arab male, walking along one of the Old City paths, lunges without warning towards a security forces member standing guard to protect the peace, whips a knife out of his clothing. Thrusts a hand holding the weapon towards the upper body of the Israel, causing what undoubtedly would be the first of several lethal wounds if no one stops him. But he is stopped by the shots of another alert Israel Border Guard officer and falls to the ground.

Arabic-language news reports (like this one from the official Palestinian Press Agency, archived here) say (translated from the Arabic original) "the Israeli occupation forces executed a Palestinian youth", that "the martyr... is from the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem" and "he is 30 years old".

The murderous assault comes against the background of what a Times of Israel report calls "a general lull in terror activity in the capital, which had not seen a stabbing attack in nearly three months".

The teenage border guard, presumably in the midst of his compulsory national service, was taken to hospital (Yediot Aharonot says Shaarei Zedek; Times of Israel reports Hadassah Mount Scopus Medical Center) for emergency treatment. Initial first aid was given at the site by Magen David Adom medics. The hospital reports that he sustained stab wounds to the chest and is "stable and fully conscious”.

Haaretz quotes Israel Police announcing that the Temple Mount gates were closed immediately after the knifing. Social media reports (like this) say that in the Shuafat neighborhood of north Jerusalem there were clashes in the hours that followed between Israel Police and locals.

21-Dec-18: After the terror attacks, the focus moves on as the quiet struggle of the victims continues

Shira and Amichai Ish-Ran speak to reporters from hospital
five days ago [Image Source]. Their baby did not survive the cowardly attack.

Based on reports in the past few hours from several news sources, including Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post, here are some updates on the Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks of the past ten days.

Amichai Ish-Ran, who took three bullets in the leg as a civilian victim - alongside his wife - of a  drive-by shooter at a bus stop near the entrance to the Israeli community of Ofra ["09-Dec-18: A shooter in a passing vehicle seriously injures several Israelis tonight near Ofra, north of Jerusalem"] is thankfully doing well enough that he was released from Shaarei Zedek Medical Center yesterday (Thursday).

His wife Shira, who suffered critical injuries in the attack, is said to be "steadily recovering". She had further surgery on Wednesday and this is reported by the hospital to have been successful. The baby boy she was carrying in her womb when they were shot died four days after the attack after being born under emergency conditions by Caesarian section.

An IDF soldier, 21-year-old Naveh Rotem, who was critically injured this past Friday when stabbed and head-bashed with a rock by a Palestinian Arab at a military post outside the Israeli community of Beit El is thankfully doing much better. The attacker who fled the scene, prompting a manhunt, later turned himself in.

The soldier, had been taken to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in life-threatening condition, unconscious and hooked up to a ventilator. The hospital said in a statement that Rotem had been treated by multiple medical experts over the past week, and quoted neurosurgeon Dr. Iddo Paldor as saying he was returning home “in good condition, strong and smiling.” Rotem will undergo followup treatment. His parents said in a statement that they were “happy to thank all the hospital staff,” saying they had “felt we were in good hands..." [Times of Israel]

Shira Sabag, a civilian seriously injured in last week’s Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack ["13-Dec-18: Another lethal Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack Thursday"] at a bus stop near the small Israeli community of Givat Assaf, is said to be improving though still hospitalized at Shaare Zedek.

An IDF soldier, Netanel Felber, whose family made aliyah to Israel from the US a decade ago, is still reported to be critically injured and fighting for his life and suffering gunshot wounds to his head in the attack, He has undergone multiple surgeries at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital. Two of his army colleagues, Yovel Mor-Yosef and Yosef Cohen, were killed in the attack.

It was reported yesterday (Thursday) that the main perpetrators of both the Ofra and Givat Assaf attacks are brothers, As'am Barghouti, 32, and Saleh Omar Barghouti, 29, clansmen and residents of the same village (up until he was incarcerated) of prominent Palestinian Arab convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti. (There's some background here: "18-Apr-17: So what, in reality, is Marwan Barghouti?") Salih Barghouti was shot last Wednesday in a village near Ramallah as he resisted apprehension by Israeli security forces. The attack allegedly carried out by As'am Barghouti happened the following day. There is an ongoing manhunt for him.

It was also reported yesterday for the first time that this As'am Barghouti was released from an Israeli prison in April 2018 after serving an 11-year sentence.

We personally sat through the 2003/4 terrorism trial of Marwan Barghouti in Tel Aviv (he was convicted and has been in prison since then). Beyond the homicides for which he was convicted, we learned that Barghouti personally laid out $500 [source] for the making of the explosive-filled guitar case that was brought to, and exploded inside, Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria destroying it on August 9, 2001 and killing fifteen innocent people including our daughter Malki. 

The Sbarro bombmaker, the inventor of that grotesque explosive-and-nails-filled guitar case, was another Barghouti clansman, Kuwait-born Abdullah Barghouti. About him, we have written numerous times. Here's one piece: "20-Jun-13: Abdullah Barghouti, terrorist, bomb-maker, killer of 66 innocents, has some demands".

When churchman Desmond Tutu, himself a Nobel Peace Prize winner,
nominated convicted murderer and terrorist Marwan Barghouti for the same
award, he tweeted the news with this photo of himself with Mrs Marwan
Barghouti [Twitter Source]

And yet one more clansman, Bilal Yaqub Barghouti, a senior Hamas operative, was personally sheltered by Marwan Barghouti in his home when Bill Barghouti was on the run from the Israeli security forces because of his involvement in the massacre at the Sbarro pizzeria (he was later convicted for his part). Bilal Barghouti said for the record that, during his stay there, "he saw a number of weapons, and when he left the house Barghouti armed him with a gun for his use."

Unlike most of the Sbarro Massacre plotters, Bilal Barghouti still resides in an Israeli prison cell. On being sentenced in 2003, he said: "Thank god. I regret that I did not kill even more people than I did kill". (More background here: "24-Aug-18: What aid funds handed to the Abbas regime ($1 million and growing) have done for savages who kill Jews".)

And this: Marwan Barghouti, whom the Nobel Prize-winning social activist church-man Desmond Tutu odiously nominated for a Nobel Prize in 2017, is arguably an unindicted accessory-after-the-fact to the Sbarro murders. (It would be nice if someone were to forward this post to Archbishop Tutu in South Africa.)

May all the victims needing a full and rapid recovery get it.

13-Dec-18: Another lethal Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack Thursday

The scene of today's Givat Asaf  shooting [Hadas Parush/Flash90]

There has been another shooting attack today (Thursday): reports say two Israelis were killed - both of them IDF soldiers according to Israel National News - and two others were severely injured, one critically.

The attack happened near the Palestinian Arab town of Silwad, on Route 60 near the Givat Asaf community, about two kilometers from Ofra, the site of the Sunday night shooting.

The shooters escaped after the attack and a large-scale IDF manhunt is currently underway.

Times of Israel, quoting the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, says one gunman exited a vehicle along the Route 60 highway and opened fire at a group of soldiers and civilian Israelis before fleeing. It seems likely that the soldiers were there doing security work - probably standing guard to protect the civilians.

It also quotes Palestinian Arab media saying the attack vehicle was quickly abandoned nearby and two suspects — the driver and the shooter — got away on foot in the direction of Ramallah.

Two of the victims were declared dead at the scene. One of the injured, a 21-year-old male, is in critical life-threatening condition with a bullet wound to the head. He is receiving emergency care at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital.

A female civilian is seriously injured and is getting emergency care at the trauma center of Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

The army has closed off the entrances to Ramallah and set up roadblocks throughout the area. Additional infantry battalions were sent into the West Bank both to defend roads and settlements and to conduct additional searches and arrests, the army said.

UPDATE Thursday December 13, 2018 at 9:00 pm: As reported this evening, the soldiers shot to death are Staff Sgt. Yovel Mor Yosef, 20, and Sgt. Yosef Cohen, 19.

Mor Yosef was from the southern city of Ashkelon. Cohen was a resident of Beit Shemesh. Both were members of the Kfir Brigade’s Netzah Yehuda infantry battalion, a unit for religious soldiers... Mor Yosef’s funeral will be held in Ashkelon and Cohen’s in Jerusalem on Friday morning. A third soldier was critically injured in the shooting and underwent surgery for a gunshot wound to the head at Hadassah Hospital Ein Karem in Jerusalem on Thursday. A civilian woman was also seriously wounded... [Times of Israel]

09-Dec-18: A shooter in a passing vehicle seriously injures several Israelis tonight near Ofra, north of Jerusalem

The facts are still somewhat unclear though enraging and upsetting. Here is what we understand.

People (not yet identified - apparently two individuals) inside a moving white sedan directed gunfire at a small group of Israeli standing at the roadside near Ofra, a community of about 4,000 Israelis located in the Binyamin region about 20 km north of the Israeli capital Jerusalem. The attack occurred around 9:00 pm Sunday night.

Times of Israel says seven people are shot (we have seen other credible reports that there are 9 - we will wait for the fog to clear). At least one, a pregnant woman, is said to be in critical condition.

Of the other injured people, two are reported to be moderately wounded and four are somewhat less seriously hurt. Israel National News says two of them are 16 year old girls. Aljazeera's mind-reading field reporters already "know" that the shooting victims are "settlers". (Obviously they have absolutely no idea at this stage but it's a well-established practice designed to demean and dehumanize the innocent victims of Arab shooting frenzies down through the ages.)

After first responder care at the scene by Magen David Adom ambulance crews, all are now in hospitals - Shaarei Zedek Medical Center and Hadassah Mt Scopus - receiving emergency treatment.

Security camera video of the shooting, posted to multiple social media sites in the past half hour, shows the white car slowing down near what appears to be a bus-stop or hitch-hiking post. Bullets are seen striking the victims who rush to escape the point-blank fire. The car stops for a few moments, then leaves the scene at high speed. Heroes.

A major manhunt is now underway.

UPDATE Monday December 10, 2018 at 6:00 am: Via Israel National News, the pregnant shooting victim is a young woman of 21, with the Hebrew name (for prayer purposes) Shira Yael bat Liora. Her baby was delivered, premature, by caesarean section and then placed in the NICU for emergency care. The mother is "suffering from gunshot wounds in the pelvic area and abdomen. The woman arrived in critical condition, she lost a lot of blood, received blood transfusions, was stabilized and was taken to the operating room for urgent emergency surgery."

UPDATE Wednesday December 12, 2018 at 7:00 pm: Sadly, "Baby dies after emergency delivery following Ofra terror attack"

“With great sorrow we announce the death of Shira and Amichai’s newborn four days after the attack despite the efforts of doctors at the neonatal intensive care unit to save him,” a spokesperson for Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem said, referring to the baby’s parents. A funeral for the baby will be held at 9:45 p.m. (tonight - Wednesday) at the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem.

14-Jul-17: In the Jerusalem Old City shadow of one of their more sacred sites, an Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack

Image Source: Al Jazeera

There has been an Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack this morning - the Moslem Sabbath - at a location adjacent to the sacred Temple Mount (in Hebrew: Har Habayit) plaza in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Two Israeli victims are reported to be seriously injured with gunshot wounds and were rushed to Hadassah Medical Center's Mount Scopus hospital for emergency treatment.

A third is injured more lightly as a result of being hit by shrapnel and sustaining wounds to the neck, arms and hands. He is being treated at Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center.

The three are described in a Times of Israel report as men in their 30s. (Past experience says the initial guesses are often wrong.)

Police opened fire on the Arab attackers and they are all now dead.

Police believe the armed gang approached the Temple Mount plaza shortly after 7:00 am today when the Temple Mount area is generally starting to be thronged by participants in the Friday prayers. They ran [as this graphic brief video shows] toward Lions' Gate - Sha'ar Ha'arayot in Hebrew - where they opened fire on the Israelis.

They then fled towards the Temple Mount complex with Israeli police in pursuit.

Video posted in the past hour shows one of the shooters lying on the ground with Israeli police, guns drawn and surrounding him. He suddenly jumps up, takes a flying leap with a knife drawn clearly trying to wound one of the police officers. He is shot before he can complete the stabbing.

The shooters were armed with two Carlo-style (from Carl Gustav) sub-machine guns and a pistol. A knife was also found at the scene. Photos are circulating on the Hebrew-language social media [link] this morning showing three Israeli photo-identification cards, said to prove that the Arab shooters were all the holders of Israeli citizenship or Israeli residential status.

As scenes of attempted carnage go, the Temple Mount is an especially historical and sacred one. (being frank about this, it's hard to ignore how often murderous attacks of a certain kind happen in synagogues, churches, mosques, sacred places and sacred times. Is there a pattern here?)

Lion's Gate is thought to have that name according to one theory because of the image of leopards - mistaken for lions - two on the left and two on the right - embedded in the wall beside the gate itself. (Another version says they are indeed lions.) It marks the start of the 600 meter long Via Dolorosa along which Jesus walked, according to tradition, on the way to his crucifixion. Fifty years ago, it was the entry point through which Israeli paratroops passed during the 1967 Six-Day War and famously unfurled an Israeli flag above the Temple Mount.

Despite its holy and historical nature, Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks do happen in the vicinity and with growing regularity. We have posted on attacks at or very close to Lions' Gate several times in the past 15 months:

• 03-May-16: On a quiet lane in Jerusalem's Old City, a Monday night terror-by-knifing attack
• 14-Dec-16: In Jerusalem's Old City this afternoon, an Arab-on-Israeli stabbing
• 13-Mar-17: Jerusalem and the (alleged) knife-men
• 13-May-17: In Jerusalem's Old City, a Jordanian stabs an Israeli and the Jordanians are outraged (so are we, for different reasons)

Times of Israel says that in the wake of this morning's terrorist attack, Jerusalem Police chief Yoram Halevi canceled prayers for the day on the Temple Mount for the first time in decades, ordering the complex cleared and the entrances to the holy site closed. Police have also placed security checkpoints at the entrances to the Old City.

Aftermath on the Temple Mount this morning [Image Source]

How did the terrorists manage to bring weapons into the holy site? Normal procedure - perhaps to the surprise of people less familiar with how real life is lived here - is that Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount are subjected to less rigorous security checking than non-Muslim visitors, all of whom are obliged by the Israeli authorities to enter via the Mughrabi foot-bridge.

There's bound to be a high-level investigation since the implications of what happened there today are serious and broad.

Don't expect the Palestinian Arab media to be asking the serious questions. They're still totally stuck in their victim-centric reporting-narrative style - the sort of reporting (referring to the Fatah-controlled and scandalous Ma'an News Agency) that produces this opening line today:

Three Palestinians and two Israeli police officers were killed during an armed confrontation in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem early on Friday morning... ["3 Palestinian citizens of Israel, 2 police officers killed in Jerusalem shooting", Ma'an, today]

Armed confrontation?!

Al Jazeerah's man on the spot offers this insightful gem:

"It is reportedly the first time in years that the compound would be closed for prayers on Friday. Of course this has the potential to increase tensions among the about 10,000 Palestinians who normally pray here on Fridays," Fawcett said. ["Jerusalem: Palestinians killed after 'shooting attack'",  Al Jazeera, today]

Tensions?! The sub-machine guns and the knife don't raise the tensions. The critically injured Israelis don't raise the tensions. The cynical abuse of a site they declare to be holy doesn't raise the tensions. The utter silence of the Muslim religious leadership and their systematic, ongoing failure to condemn Arab-on-Israeli terrorist attacks don't raise the tensions.

But decisions by responsible law-and-order authorities, conditioned by long experience to know the nature of the Palestinian Arab mobs and the harm that generally follows (mainly in their own settlements and to their own children) their irresponsible violence - they raise the tensions.

Lethal journalism is what it's called.

UPDATE 12:30 pm Friday July 14, 2017:
Tragically, the two seriously injured Israelis shot by a gang of armed Arab attackers this morning have died of their wounds [Israel National News]. Times of Israel identifies them as two police officers, both from Israel's Druze community: Haiel Sitawe, 30, from Maghar, a mostly Druze and Arab city in northern Israel, who signed up with the Border Guard as part of his mandatory national service in 2012 and served in the unit responsible for securing the Temple Mount ever since; and Kamil Shnaan, 22, from Hurfeish, an almost entirely-Druze village also in Israel's north. Sitawe is survived by a wife, Irin, and a three-week-old son, as well as parents and three brothers. Shnaan was to celebrate his engagement party to his girlfriend in a week. He leaves behind parents, a brother and three sisters. His father, Shachiv Shnaan, served for a time as Knesset member representing, first the Labor party, and later Ehud Barak's short-lived Independence party.

The three dead attackers are all from the Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, with a population of more than 50,000 Israel's third-largest Arab community and a center of power for Israel's Islamic Movement whose notorious so-called Northern Branch headed by Raed Sallah was outlawed by Israel in 2016 because of its ties to Hamas and the Moslem Brotherhood. The dead gunman are all called Muhammad Jabarin and all are plainly from the same clan: Muhammad Ahmed Muhammad Jabarin, 29; Muhammad Hamad Abdel Latif Jabarin, 19; and Muhammad Ahmed Mafdal Jabarin, 19. The Jabarin clan's home base is Musherifa, a village in the vicinity of Um-al-Fahm.

UPDATE 3:00 pm Friday July 14, 2017
An updated version of the Ma'an news report on the terror attack calls the two proudly-patriotic Israeli Druze police officers who were the victims of the shooting attack this morning "Palestinian citizens of Israel" whose lives ended "during an armed confrontation":

Source

We fear the intention of the Ma'an editorial spinmeisters was not to bring comfort to the families of the fallen Druze police men.

In similar black-is-white fashion, the savages of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have fulsomely praised today's shooting attack with their own public statements. Hamas called the brazen bloodshed at a sacred site "heroic" and a ''natural consequence of a series of crimes''. Not to be outdone in the chase for outlandish similes, Islamic Jihad said the shootings were ''demonstrations of courage by our people against occupying forces that must now beware to cross a red line''.

Whether or not the Israeli side is going to be more cautious about crossing an imaginary Islamist line in the coming days, what's sadly clear (again) is that on a day in which five lives, all of them Arab, were lost in pointless Jerusalem violence, the fat-cats in Gaza are congratulating themselves as they pump the heads of their society's children with self-destructive notions of honor, courage and dying while killing the "occupiers" in the occupiers's own capital city.

24-Apr-17: At Qalandiya Crossing, a woman stabber attacked an Israeli official this morning

The alleged stabber
[Credit]

Yet another Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attack today. This one, around 6:45 Monday morning at the busy Qalandiya security checkpoint close to Ramallah and to Jerusalem's northern suburbs, involves the sort of malice aforethought that is endemic among our neighbours.

First, about the victim: she's an Israeli woman of 28, an employee of the Ministry of Defense’s Civil Administration. Ynet says she was rushed by ambulance to Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, to be treated for a shoulder stab wound after being attacked by an assailant armed with a knife.

The attacker, also a female, is uninjured even though she was stopped and apprehended. This, perhaps surprisingly, is not surprising. For all the bad publicity Israeli security personnel often get, in reality they take an amazing amount of care to minimize harm to those they are called upon to neutralize, even at the risk of physical harm - or worse - to themselves.

The attacker is

Asya Kaabana, 41, who lives in the Shechem (Nablus) area town of Duma, the Shin Bet security agency reported. Kaabana is married and a mother of nine children, and recently has had difficulties in her marriage, with her husband threatening to send her back to her family in Jordan. The Shin Bet also discovered that the terrorist fought with her husband on Sunday night over their children's education. This argument caused the woman to decide to carry out a terror attack, in the hopes Israeli security forces would shoot her, since, "she was sick of her life anyway"... [Israel National News]

According to a police spokesperson, she

The attacker's weapon [Image Source:
Israel Police]

came to the Qalandiya checkpoint... While waiting in line to be checked, the terrorist approached a female security officer, claiming to have a question she needed to ask her. At this point she apparently drew a knife that was in her purse and quickly approached the female security officer and stabbed her. Police and security guards that were on the scene overpowered her and neutralized her... [a different Israel National News report]

Duma, where the knifer lives, is the village where an Arab home was destroyed by fire in mid-2015, causing the deaths of three members of one family, the Dawabshas. Charges in connection with that fire and the deaths were brought against an Israeli adult and a minor in January 2016. But no convictions have yet been entered. A vague Wikipedia reference [here] says various media accounts have "attributed the wave of stabbing attacks by Palestinians from late 2015 through 2016 at least partly to the Duma arson killings as well as Israeli delays in pressing charges against any suspects". Could today's attack be part of the "revenge" campaign?

Over at the Ma'an News Agency site, they name the attacker as Asiya Kaabna, calling her a resident of the village of "Tayba", near Ramallah. Taybeh (a better spelling) is considered the last remaining all-Christian community under Palestinian Authority control, so - given that stabbing attacks by Christian are quite unusual - we doubt they have the facts right.

A not-so-minor side issue: if today's knife-woman is convicted by an Israeli court of a terrorism offense, those nine children at home, as well as the husband with whom she fought last night, are likely to benefit financially. 

That's thanks to the notorious Palestinian Authority "Rewards for Terror" scheme. It's been going for quite some years [see "28-Jul-11: Taxpayer-funded salaries to convicted Palestinian Arab terrorists. What a good idea."], it still plays a huge role in maintaining the extraordinarily high levels of Arab-on-Israeli violence [see "28-Mar-17: The US can end the Palestinian Arab bureaucracy of terror"] and while there's talk of curbing its lethal impact ["01-Mar-17: Washington may be launching a long-overdue assault on Abbas' lethal Rewards for Terror scheme"], it keeps showing tremendous endurance ["29-Jan-17: What's the exchange rate for American dollars into Palestinian Arab terror killings?"].

14-Apr-17: The urge to stab erupts again: In Jerusalem, a young woman is knifed on a tram

Paramedics at the scene [Image Source]

As busy, bustling and full of life as Israel's capital is today during the Passover festival, there is a serious incident to report.

The deep strategic reserves of explosive hatred, in evidence for generations in the form of Arab-on-Israeli terror, erupted again a short time ago, Friday a little after noon, in Jerusalem.

A young woman is reported (at about 1:40 pm Friday) to be in critical condition after becoming the latest victim of a stabbing attack, this time while on board the Jerusalem Light Rail. As we write this, the latest report says first-responder medics from the Magen David Adom ambulance service gave her emergency treatment at the scene of the attack. She was then rushed to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Mount Scopus hospital unconscious and in critical condition with multiple stab wounds to the upper body. Times of Israel is estimating she is in her mid-twenties.

There are additional victims. A pregnant woman suffered an injury to the stomach when the tram came to a sudden halt as a consequence of the terror attack. A man said to be in his 50s suffered an injured leg in trying to run from the scene. Both were brought to Shaarei Zedek Medical Center hospital for emergency treatment.

The scene of the stabbing is close to Zahal Square where Jerusalem's principal thoroughfare comes as close as it ever does to the Old City Walls and nearby Jaffa Gate. Damscus Gate of the Old City, a favored locale for Arab violence, is a couple of hundred meters further along the tram tracks. Officers of the Border Guard police sealed Damascus Gate as they often do when terrorist activity takes place in its vicinity.

At this stage, we have no information about the attacker other than he is reported to be alive and well.

UPDATE 1:55 pm: A Hebrew social media report quotes a senior police source saying the attacker is a male in his fifties, thought to be suffering from mental problems (vague and unspecified at this stage). Times of Israel reports that the victim is British, and the attacker is an East Jerusalem resident - probably meaning a Palestinian Arab.

UPDATE 2:15 pm Friday: Ynet says the stabbing victim, a young British woman of 22, a student, has died of her wounds. What a terrible tragedy.

UPDATE 2:40 pm Friday: The stabber is named by Ynet: Jamil Tamimi, 57, from the Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Ras al-Amud. That name Tamimi has strong resonances for us. The Arab Ma'an News Agency says he "has a prior criminal police record for domestic violence".

30-Oct-16: Another vehicle ramming attack, another shooting attack, another "martyr"

This evening's attack vehicle after IDF forces stopped it and its
driver [Image Source]

Haaretz reports ["Three wounded troops hurt in West Bank car-ramming", October 30, 2016] on an Arab-on-Israeli vehicle-ramming attack late this afternoon in Beit Ummar, a town that has earned itself [click here] a reputation for wanton violence in recent years.

A Palestinian driver was shot dead after running over three Border Policemen north of the West Bank city of Hebron. The three troops were lightly wounded. The incident occurred in Beit Omar, north of Hebron. The victims were evacuated to a hospital in Jerusalem by the Magen David Adom ambulance service... [In addition, a] Palestinian teen was killed in Beit Omar last Thursday after he pelted an army patrol jeep with stones. Military Police have since opened an investigation into the incident.

Times of Israel, quoting Arab sources, names the driver of the ramming car as Khaled Ahmad Aylan, 23 years old, of Beit Ummar. The Arab news source Ma'an News Agency calls him aKhalid Ahmad Elayyan Ikhlayyil, and in its Arabic version [here] gives prominence to a smiling portrait of the would-be killer, calling him (who's surprised by this?) shahid, Arabic for "martyr". 

As we noted last night ["29-Oct-16: Knives, cars, guns: Israeli security thwarts weekend attacks"], another vehicle-ramming attack was launched against Israelis this past Friday near Ofra.

The same Haaretz article also reports about a shooting attack last night that brought with it echoes of the intense violence of the early 2000s:

On Saturday evening, gunmen opened fire toward Israelis driving near the Karmei Tzur settlement. No casualties or damage were reported and a manhunt is underway for the assailants.

The editors at Haaretz don't name last night's victim who, thankfully, escaped uninjured. She is Ruthie Gillis whose vehicle came under fire as she was driving from her home in Karmei Tzur towards Jerusalem. Her husband, Dr. Shmuel Gillis, a respected haematologist at Hadassah hospital in Ein Karem, was murdered by gun-firing Arabs on the same road fifteen years earlier in 2001 as he was driving home from the hospital to his wife and five young children.

He treated patients suffering from leukemia and lymphoma, not only from Israel but also from Gaza, Ramallah, Nablus, and even from Jordan and Egypt. One of his patients, an Arab woman, described him as "better than an angel"... [Source]

The savagery that holds much of Palestinian Arab society and its leadership in its fierce grip pays scant attention to whether Israeli victims are life-saving doctors or angels. As we wrote here ["18-Oct-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think and feel now?"] less than two weeks ago

Palestinian Arab support for... "an armed intifada" is currently high, as it has been for a long time. Three months ago, it stood at 54%. In this latest poll, it's down all the way to 48% - which still means every second Palestinian Arab favours the continuation of a shooting/stabbing/ramming campaign against Israeli civilians. Think about that for a moment, and consider what it means for those of us who come into contact with them every day. 

10-Oct-16: Does yesterday's Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack say anything about our neighbours?

The cold-blooded murder of Levanah
Malichi at a Jerusalem tram
stop yesterday has warmed many
Palestinian Arab hearts

It's hard to think about the explosion of violence ["09-Oct-16: In Jerusalem, first reports of Arab-on-Israeli shootings this morning"] yesterday in this city of great beauty and of peace and spirituality without reflecting on the awful savagery of the past several years. Do yesterday's events add anything to our understanding?

In the aftermath of Sunday's attack by a lethally-armed Palestinian Arab attacker on unarmed Israelis standing at tram-stops in the capital, the New York Times looked at the people behind the attack:

Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the Palestinian coastal territory of Gaza, praised the attack and described the gunman as “one of ours.” Al Quds, the Hamas-affiliated television station, broadcast a video that it said was exclusive to the channel and that it described as the perpetrator’s last words. It was not clear when or where the video had been filmed. In it, the man, wearing a green polo shirt, the color of Islam and of Hamas’s flag, stood before a map of historic Palestine.

Not an outright claim of ownership - though Times of Israel says it is, quoting Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum who characterized the cowardly shooting of randomly-targeted Israelis as “a natural reaction to the crimes and violations of the occupation against our people.”

Hamas are riding the wave of Palestinian Arab support for savagery of Sunday morning's kind. And not to be out-flanked, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement also praised that attack, calling it “heroic.”

How widespread is that support?

We offered a view some months ago, in "15-Jun-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?". The picture provided by reputable Arab pollsters is strikingly consistent. The answers are so clear-cut and so extreme that it's astounding they are referred to so little in the news commentary provided by 'experts'.

Here's one of the ways the flames keep being stoked. Avi Issacharoff, The Times of Israel's Middle East analyst, writes that members of the killer's family

joined the celebrations of his “martyrdom,” handing out candies to all those who passed by their house. Even his young daughter put out a video in which she expressed her joy in her father becoming a “shahid” (martyr)... The terrorist published a “will” in which he called on Muslims to act to protect the [Al-Aqsa] mosque.  ["Does the Jerusalem terror attack signal a new uprising?", Times of Israel, October 9, 2016]

The killer's daughter is Ma'an's principal focus today. The father
earlier posted a statement saying "We sacrifice
our children for Al-Aqsa".

The family's adulation of yesterday's murders, and of the murderer, is a major talking point for the reporters and editors of Ma'an News Agency. The main story on their English-language news site at this moment (Monday October 10, 2016 at 12 noon) is headed "Israeli forces detain slain Palestinian gunman's 14-year-old daughter"

A video of Eiman hailing her father’s actions went viral on social media on Sunday. "We deem my father as martyr,” she said in the video. “We hope he will plead for us before God on judgment day… I am proud of what my father did..." 

From the same Arab source, additional hard-to-miss signs of how much support there is currently in Palestinian Arab circles for the murder of innocent Jews:

Hamas said on Sunday afternoon that Abu Sbeih was a member of its Islamic resistance movement. Meanwhile, the Fatah movement in Jerusalem declared a day of mourning for slain Palestinians on Sunday afternoon following Abu Sbeih’s death. Fatah said in a statement it rejected Israeli forces’ killing of Palestinians, especially in Jerusalem, and that it would never leave the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and the Old City “fall prey” to Israeli “extremists and terrorists” Ma'an News Agency, October 10, 2016]

Yosef Kirmah, newly-married, a '
decorated anti-terrorism hero,
now dead

Fatah, to remind those of lose sight of such things, is headed by "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority:

In two separate posts on its official Facebook page, Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Movement honored the terrorist murderer... Fatah referred to the murderer as a "Shahid," an Islamic Martyr - someone who died for Allah - a status the Palestinian Authority presents as the highest achievement a Muslim can reach in life. Defining a dead murderer as a Shahid indicates that according to Fatah, the murder of Israelis is sanctioned and even desired in the name of Islam. Palestinian Media Watch has documented that it is PA and Fatah policy to glorify terrorist murderers and turn them into role models for Palestinian society.
Fatah and the Palestinian Authority for quite some time have been defining the conflict with Israel as a religious war, defining all attackers and the murderers of Israelis as heroic defenders of Islam and its symbols. Fatah's Jerusalem branch announced "mourning and a general strike for Palestine's Martyrs" and specifically mentioned today's killer - "this morning's Martyr" and vowed to "defend the honor of the Arab and Islamic nations with our bare chests"... Voice of Palestine Radio likewise reported that the Jerusalem branch of Fatah announced a day of mourning and a general strike in Jerusalem “due to the death of the Shahid Abu Sbeih.” [Palestinian Media Watch, October 9, 2016]

The head of Hamas, Khaled Mashaal, reportedly phoned the parents of the dead terrorist last night from his penthouse suite in Qatar, absurdly telling them his deeds “defended the Palestinian people” who, he said, were “proud” of what he did and who will serve as an “example” to his contemporaries. “Hamas will carry on it its jihad until Palestine and the Al-Aqsa Mosque are liberated from the impurity of the occupation”, said Mashal in a reminder of one of the central truths of the generations-long bloody conflict: it has almost nothing to do with creating another Arab state, and everything to do with destroying the only Jewish one.

In addition to the six wounded, two Israelis were killed in yesterday's murderous attack. 

Yosef Kirmah, an officer in an Israel Police counter-terrorism unit, the Yasam (a Hebrew acronym for Special Patrol Unit), was one of the police motor-cyclists who pursued the gunman after the attack and engaged in a gunfight with him in which the gunman also died. He was 29. Hundreds attended his funeral late yesterday at Jerusalem's Mt Herzl Military Cemetery:

In her eulogy, Noy Kirma, whose husband had been awarded a medal of honor last December for thwarting a Palestinian stabbing attack on kindergarten kids, continued: “How many plans we had — for a home and children. You loved me more than I love myself... You were my shoulder to lean on…” said the young widow, who had been married to the Israeli hero for only six months before his life was cut short. “You were loved by all. You were number one in their eyes. Number one in my eyes. I don’t know how the world will turn without you…You will be in my heart until the day I die.” [Algemeiner, October 9, 2016]

A Facebook page, quickly set up in his memory, served as a magnet for expressions of incitement and hatred during yesterday. Israel National News says:

Facebook users from Israel’s Arab sector bombarded Kirma’s memorial page with abusive taunts, anti-Semitic smears, and explicit incitement to violence and even threats of murder. Some of the offensive posts included images of anti-Semitic caricatures, pictures of bloody drawn knives and vulgar language.

Levanah Malichi, the second victim of yesterday's shooting ramage, died of her injuries at the Hadassah hospital on nearby Mt. Scopus. She left behind a husband, three children and six grandchildren. Many Jerusalemites remember her fondly from the three decades of her work on the administrative and logistics side of the Knesset, Israel's parliament. The Knesset speaker Yuli Edestein is expected to eulogize Malichi at her funeral today.

The police say (according to Haaretz) that the shooter

used a .556-caliber automatic rifle, in contrast to the crude, homemade firearms typically used in past attacks... [P]olice were trying to determine how the shooter had obtained the weapon.

It's unlikely that that particular high-power, automatic weapon is the only one currently in the hands of murder-minded Palestinian Arabs, already well-equipped with what are sometimes called home-made guns. The current tensions are unlikely to abate soon.

The same is true of the open adulation for the dead gunman, as evidenced by doing a Google search on "الشهيد أبو صبيح". Those Arabic words translate to "Martyr Abu Sabih", which is the name more than 60,000 hits give at this hour to the man who mercilessly opened fire with his high-powered rifle on unsuspecting Israeli commuters yesterday in order to "save" a house of prayer. In a string of Facebook posts, the gunman offered such thoughts as "We sacrifice our souls and our blood for you Al-Aqsa" and "We sacrifice our children for Al-Aqsa".

His frame of mind and his actions are likely on the minds of many other Palestinian Arabs today.

We're wide open to being shown Arabic-language condemnations of the pointless killings perpetrated in Jerusalem yesterday. If there are truly angry Arab voices out there, or even just some expressions of Palestinian Arab despair at the open bigotry and the immorality of celebrating murders, people need to hear them and know about them.

We're waiting, as we have been for some time.

01-Oct-16: At Qalandiya Crossing on Jerusalem's northern edge, a thwarted stabbing attack leaves the assailant dead

With the end of the Sabbath, we're starting to catch up on the news of the past 28 hours. Not so surprisingly, one of the key reports concerns a Palestinian Arab man with a knife in his hand and mayhem on his mind.

This is how Times of Israel reports it:

An Israeli soldier was moderately wounded in a stabbing attack in the West Bank’s Qalandiya area north of Jerusalem on Friday, a police spokeswoman said. She said the Palestinian attacker was shot dead by surrounding forces. The 24-year-old IDF soldier was stabbed by a 28-year-old assailant who approached the Israeli checkpoint at Qalandiya on foot, officials said. The attacker was shot by both a soldier from the Military Police and a civilian security guard, and was killed. The soldier suffered stab wounds to his upper body. He was treated at the scene by paramedics who then took him to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. The attacker was a Jerusalem native, according to AFP. Some 200 Palestinians were rioting at the Qalandia checkpoint an hour after the stabbing. Police said security forces at the checkpoint were using riot-dispersal means. The Qalandiya checkpoint is the main crossing into the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Israel National News reports that the IDF serviceman is in fact a 20-year-old. His injuries were said to be moderate-to-serious when initially treated by an IDF medical team and Magen David Adom paramedics. He was quickly evacuated to the Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem. A later report, also from Israel National News, this evening (Saturday) says he is now in moderate and stable condition and fully conscious.

Ma'an News Agency, the self-described independent Palestinian Arab news source, uncharacteristically fails to include the word "alleged" from its headline ["Palestinian shot dead after stabbing soldier at Qalandiya checkpoint"]. It says the attacker is a

28-year-old Palestinian was from the nearby village of Kafr Aqab in the Jerusalem district of the occupied West Bank. He was later identified on Palestinian media sites as Naseem Abu Meizar.

The young dead man from Kafr Aqab is already being turned into a "martyr" as the poster in tonight's Tweet [here] shows. And other parts of the Palestinian Arab media [here, for instance] haven't given up on the use of the word "alleged" in describing the last moments of the knifer's life.

19-Sep-16: Outside Jerusalem's Old City, a Monday morning Arab-on-Israeli terror attack

There continues to be serious violence in the air.

Two officers of the Border Guard service (Mishmar Hagvul in Hebrew) were seriously injured when attacked from behind by a man wielding a knife on the street outside Jerusalem's Old City around 7:00 this (Monday) morning.

Times of Israel says one of the Israeli victims, a female officer of about 38, is in intensive care at Shaarei Zedek Medical Center hospital with stab wounds to the neck. (We have noted before that attacking the neck is standard Arab-on-Israeli practice in the Palestinian Arab terror manual.) She is unconscious and was placed on a respirator.

A second victim, also a Border Guard officer of about 40, has moderate injuries and is hospitalized at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem's Ein Karem quarter with multiple stab wounds to the upper body. He is conscious. It was evidently he who fired his weapon at the terrorist, preventing further mayhem.

Their attacker was shot and is now receiving treatment in a Jerusalem hospital where the latest report is that he's in critical condition. The initial reports we have seen say he is in his early 20s and from the Ras al-Amud neighbourhood of East Jerusalem. In a later Times of Israel report, the knifer is identified as Ayman al-Kurd.

An earlier report from the Jerusalem Post says the attack took place on the road outside two of Jerusalem's medieval gates: Damascus Gate and Herod’s (or Flower) Gate. The Israeli victims were on security patrol. The entire area - and many Jerusalem major roads - were immediately cordoned off, causing traffic chaos and delays throughout the city during Monday morning rush hour.

More shortly about the other terrorist activity of today.

01-Jul-16: An Israeli family, driving to their Sabbath destination, are the latest victims

From Times of Israel in the past few minutes (it's now 3:45 pm):

An Israeli man was killed Friday afternoon and a woman was seriously hurt when their family’s car came under gunfire from a passing vehicle. Their baby in the vehicle was lightly injured in the attack, near the West Bank city of Hebron. The car flipped over due to the attack close to Adurim Junction on Route 60. Two other people sustained light-to-moderate injuries, rescue personnel said. The dead man was in his 30s, according to the Magen David Adom rescue service. The 40-year-old woman was hit by gunfire and suffered from a head wound, the MDA said. It appeared as though the four victims were a family, the Walla news site reported... Security forces were searching the area for the perpetrators, the army said in a statement.

At Israel National News, they add that the injured woman was rushed to to Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in serious condition, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds to the upper body, and was placed immediately on a respirator. The two other casualties from the drive-by shooting attack at Adorayim Junction are moderately and lightly wounded:

According to initial reports, terrorists opened fire on two Israeli civilian vehicles, striking both and causing one to overturn. IDF forces responded quickly and are currently pursuing the terrorists who carried out the attack.

Developing.

18-Apr-16: A Jerusalem bus has exploded

Channel 2 Israel

An explosion around 5:50 pm this afternoon, Monday, on Moshe Baram Street in southern Jerusalem has caused damage to a moving bus, while a second bus is aflame, along with two other non-bus vehicles.

The scene is already busy with rescue workers, security people, reporters and many others. It's a sight that Jerusalemites know too well, but there's real caution here about reaching conclusions. Some media sources, sad to say, reached far too quickly for extravagant descriptions and ominous conclusions (this one for instance, reporting from London on 20 fatalities).

It's certainly an explosion and no doubt of the damage and the injuries but is this a terrorist act? The first reports from Israel Police in Jerusalem said yes.

Now (6:15 pm) the matter seems to be unclear. We're not rushing to judgment. But no one here wants to confront a new reality that involves exploding buses and jihad-minded bombers... unless the reality is proven beyond doubt. We're not there at this point, though Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barkat, was reported [here] in the past hour saying

the blast came from a small explosive device on the back of the bus, but urged people to remain calm and allow police to complete their investigation.

All of the injured - currently 15 of them, with 2 considered to be in serious condition - have already been evacuated to hospital during the half hour that has passed since the explosion, most to Shaarei Zedek Medical Center and Hadassah Ein Karem hospital. There are still only sketchy details of the extent of the injuries.

UPDATE 8:00 pm Monday: Israel Police have now come down on the side of declaring the bus explosion a terror attack. From Times of Israel:

Jerusalem police chief Yoram Halevy told media the blast was caused by an explosive device placed on the bus, but it was unclear how the bomb got there and if the attack was an attempted suicide bombing. “When a bomb explodes on a bus it is a terror attack,” he said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast.

For the record, other aspects of the initial report (we won't go into detail at this stage) are wrong. This is all quite a serious development. 

18-Feb-16: A Palestinian Arab reminder this afternoon of what, in their eyes, children are good for

Time for people to better understand who provides
the knives, the encouragement and the inspiration
that is destroying the lives of  poorly-educated,
highly motivated Pal Arab youths

Not for the first time [refer back to December 2014 and November 2015], a branch of the Rami Levy supermarket chain, known for its open and welcoming approach to Palestinian Arabs on both sides of the shopping transaction, has become the scene of a violent Arab-on-Israeli terror attack.

First reports came around 4:45 pm this afternoon, near dusk. From Times of Israel in the past hour:

Two Israelis were wounded, one of them seriously, in a suspected terror stabbing in an industrial zone north of Jerusalem Thursday afternoon. The stabbing occurred in a supermarket belonging to the Rami Levy chain in the Sha’ar Binyamin industrial zone, located southeast of Ramallah in the West Bank. One of the victims, a 17-year-old, was said to be in moderate condition, while the second, 35, was in moderate-to-serious condition. Two Palestinian stabbers were shot by a civilian. They were reported to be in serious condition and were described by an eyewitness as “very young children.”

We don't know for sure at this stage whether that is true or not. We do note that the Palestinian Arab media are describing the attackers as aged 17 and 35. See Ma'an News Agency's report here. This is almost certainly wrong.

Ma'an News Agency, a Palestinian Arab source (screen shot). Note how old Ma'an,
but almost no one else, thinks the attackers are

In characteristic fashion, the Ma'an article spins some self-serving context by writing: "A wave of small-scale attacks carried out by Palestinian individuals in the occupied Palestinian territory -- predominantly on Israeli military targets -- have increasing targeting illegal settlements this month... International bodies have attempted to quell the ongoing violence through urging restraint by both Israeli and Palestinian leadership." Most of that is factually plain wrong including, we are fairly certain, the ages of the Arab attackers.

We know now [6:30 pm Thursday] that a 21-year-old Israeli is seriously wounded (now receiving emergency treatment at Shaarei Zedek in Jerusalem) and a 36-year-old Israeli is moderately injured (now in the emergency room at Hadassah). People who pray have been asked to have in mind the names of טובי׳ה ינאי בן אורלי and אברהם בן חמדה (Tuvia Yanai ben Orly, and Avraham Ben Hemda) for a Refuah Shleimah, a full recovery.

Haaretz says "The attackers were both are said to be alive and en route to an Israeli hospital."

The supermarket where this evening's attack was carried out [Image Source]

This seems a good time to point to the highly-political campaign being waged right now by supporters of Palestinian Arab terror in the social media under the hashtag @FreeAhmadManasrah. That name belongs to a child of 13 who was part of a two-child stabbing spree (along with a cousin a mere two years older who died in the effort) in Pisgat Ze'ev, a northern Jerusalem neighbourhood a few minutes drive from the scene of this afternoon's stabbing. We explored some of the issues in a post ["12-Nov-15: What about Palestinian Arab terror gives it that unique savagery?"] at the time.

Those behind that morality-deficient campaign to free the child (immediately) and to absurdly blame the Israelis for the freedom-limiting changes that have come over his life can legitimately be thought of as among the authors of today's knifings.

When those social activists and "human rights" protestors starting giving thought to the dozens of victims of child-enacted Palestinian Arab lethal violence - on both sides - we can start assessing their claims in different tones.

We can put numbers to the scale of the disaster. A report published yesterday [Ynet, February 17, 2016] based on data collected by the Shin Bet and the Israeli military, finds that about half of the 200+ perpetrators of terrorist attacks against Israelis in the past five months are under the age of 20, About ten percent are under the age of 16.

We are witnesses to a massive loss of moral compass in which children - as young as 11 - are encouraged by the instrumentalities of Palestinian Arab society to see stabbings, shootings, car rammings and bombings as acts of redemption, justified by a sense of feverishly-cultivated victimhood and sense of oppression, validated by the most powerful voices in Palestinian Arab society. The lethal incitement comes non-stop from (among others) the prime minister, the president, the religious establishment, the schools. Describing their society as being in the grip of a death cult seems a fair description to us.

Inside the store this evening [Social media source]

Back to this past hour's events, an attack during the week's busiest supermarket hours when Israeli families stock up for the upcoming Sabbath:

Paramedics treated the wounded at the scene of the attack and took the victims to Jerusalem hospitals. A large number of security forces were at the scene. An eyewitness identified as Uziel told Army Radio the supermarket was packed at the time of the attack. “I was in the middle of selecting vegetables inside when suddenly we heard screaming. Everyone immediately knew it was a terror attack.
“Within a matter of seconds soldiers and civilians with weapons rushed over…they shot the first terrorist and after 10 seconds or so they shot the second terrorist as well.”
[...A] military medic who was doing his shopping at the time ran over and gave the victims initial medical assistance. [The stabbers]  "both looked very young, children…everyone was in shock that these were kids — at least, they looked very young." The supermarket is located in an industrial zone frequented by Israeli settlers as well as Palestinian shoppers. Several attacks have taken place there in recent months... [Times of Israel]

UPDATE February 18, 2016 at 7:15 pm: Channel 10's correspondent Alon Ben David has tweeted that the attackers are aged 14 and 15, and one is now dead. Times of Israel says the knifers are children of 14 and 15 from the West Bank village of Beitunia, near Ramallah. Ma'an has now changed its report by deleting the bogus ages they quoted earlier, and that we screen-shot a few paragraphs above this. Times of Israel also reports that the younger of the two Israelis stabbed in the attack has now unfortunately succumbed to his wounds and died. His name is Tuvia Yanai Weissman.

23-Dec-15: At Jerusalem's Jaffa Gate, two knife-attackers, three victims

The promenade leading to Jaffa Gate is the scene of this afternoon's
co-ordinated stabbing attacks [Image Source]

There has been a stabbing attack at Jaffa Gate, the major entrance to Jerusalem's Old City. Three Israelis are injured; one is in critical condition, evidently after being inadvertently hit by Border Guard fire; two others with knife injuries defined as serious.

[UPDATE: 7:00 pm Times of Israel reports that the Israeli, a man of 40, unintentionally shot by Border Guard fire, has died of his injuries. Ofer Ben-Ari, 40, of Jerusalem, is survived by his wife and two children. A second Israeli victim, Argentine-born Rabbi Re'uven Biermacher from Kiryat Ye'arim, a teacher of Torah at Aish HaTorah, father of 7, died of knife-attack injuries.]

It's reported [Times of Israel, December 23, 2015] that the attackers were a pair of Palestinian Arabs. One of the victims is reported to have struggled with his stabber and was stabbed multiple times. Both of the knifers were shot by Border Guard fire at the scene. Both are dead.

In the Arab media, they are named as Anan Abu Habsah Hamad, 20, and Issa Assaf, 19, both from Qalandiya. There's no confirmation of this from official Israeli sources since the pair were not carrying ID or other documents, according to the police. How likely is it that they are already elevated to the Palestinian Arab pantheon of murdering "martyrs"? Quite. (And for those anxious to see what the savages looked like, here's a Twitter photo.) Israel National News says both spent time in Israeli prisons in the past for terrorism offences.

Our most recent mentions of Qalandiya were here:

• 18-Dec-15: Vehicle ramming attack on Jerusalem's northern edge
• 23-Nov-15: Central Jerusalem's shuk - two slashers attack and are stopped
• 17-Oct-15: Bloody Saturday
• 17-Oct-15: Knife attack at Qalandiya Crossing tonight

Two of today's victims were rushed to Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center, where the individual who had been shot was taken directly to the operating room. The other two victims were sent by ambulance to Shaarei Zedek and to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital.

As of today's stabbings, Arab-on-Israeli attacks have cost the lives of 23 victims since the current wave of extreme violence began during the Jewish New Year festival period in September 2015. With that in mind, let's recall what the prime minister of Sweden, Stefan Lofven, said in an interview with the Swedish news agency TT in early December:

“There is an international classification regarding what constitutes or does not constitute [terror]. As far as I know, the [knife attacks in Israel] are not defined as terror.” [Source]

His Minister of Foreign Affairs Margot Wallstrom was quoted a few days before that saying Israel

was conducting “extrajudicial executions” of Palestinian stabbers, calling the Israeli response to the terrorist attacks “disproportionate.” [Source]