29-Aug-18: Hamas and its women take center-stage again in Hevron

Image Source

The uncovering of a significant Hamas terror cell based in the Hevron area, and the central role in it taken by females, was cleared for publication in a Shin Bet announcement yesterday (Tuesday). Ynet says initial indictments have been filed in the Judea Military Court.

Some of the key disclosures:

• A special focus on women - dozens of them from the Hevron area are reported to have been recruited into Hamas via this initiative.
• Cell leaders received "money, messages, and instructions" from Hamas terror leaders based outside Israel - including (according to Haaretz) Haroun Nasser Adin, another of several Shalit Deal beneficiaries now operating from Turkey. (See "29-Jan-18: Freeing unrepentant terrorists and the horrors it has brought" for some commentary on the scale of the ongoing Shalit Deal catastrophe.)
• The cell, made up of dozens of Palestinian Arabs, "promoted" Hamas activity in the area including recruiting new members for its work; coordinating via mosques; gathering intelligence; engaging in incitement via sermons and the social media; giving support to prisoners' families; transferring messages and instructions; moving funds around to finance terror.
• An attempt, in the words of an Israel National News report, "to take control of the Hevron municipality and various charities in the city".
• The establishment of a local committee to be the Hevron operational arm of Hamas' headquarters. 

That committee is said to be headed by a woman named Dina al-Karmi. Who is she?

Ynet gives her name as Dina al-Said. An Arab source calls her Donya Sa'id and fleshes out the description in this nauseatingly disingenuous way: "the wife a Palestinian man who was killed by the army several years ago". An unfortunate accident?

In fact, her late and not-lamented husband Nashat al-Karmi was a terrorist who (in the rather laconic words of last night's Jerusalem Post report - which to be fair may merely be echoing what the Shin Bet said) "carried out an attack in 2010 in which four Israeli civilians were killed". 

Carried out an attack? As it happens, we wrote at the time about that specific savagery:

Reuters reports today that the Hamas terrorist organization has claimed full reponsibility for yesterday's ambush and execution of four Israeli civilians. It quotes a Hamas statement saying it "announces its full responsibility for the heroic operation in Hebron". This, in Hamas terms, was indeed a heroic operation, a classic of its kind. It was directed at a carload of two men, two women. No Israeli soldiers in the vicinity. No strategic goal other than terrorism for its own sake. The shooters, dressed in civilian clothing, fled into the night. Heroism, pure and simple. Heroism of the kind  that the world has come to know and expect from exponents of Islamicism in its various jihadist flavours. A little reported aspect of the Hamas heroism: one of the rescue service volunteers who arrived on the scene (according to the Jerusalem Post) broke down in tears on viewing the bodies. His colleagues were surprised - this is not a new experience in their line of work. Then they heard him crying out: "That's my wife!' That's my wife!' and indeed his wife is one of the four victims. Their names again (because these are human beings): Yitzhak and Tali Ames (who leave six orphans), Cochava Even Haim, and Avishai Schindler... ["1-Sep-10: Real people, real terror"]

Nashat al-Karmi's career in barbarism came to an abrupt end a couple of weeks after the murders he committed eight years ago. Here's one account of the circumstances:

Israeli forces in the West Bank have shot dead two Hamas militants they say were responsible for the killings of four Israelis last month, according to a senior Palestinian security official... Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said in a statement that the operation was "a quick response to the murder of the four Israelis"... The senior Palestinian security official said Nashat al-Karmi and Mamoun al-Natshi were killed in an early morning raid and had been identified by family members. Hamas media later confirmed the killings. The official said the two belonged to Islamist Hamas and were behind the killing of four Israelis on the eve of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that began last month. Hamas, which controls the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, opposes the talks. ["Two shot dead in Hebron", The Irish Times, October 8, 2010]

Image Source

So is this clear? Four innocent Israelis were murdered on an Israeli highway because Hamas opposes peace talks that were getting underway the following day.

The names of the leaders of this newly-uncovered 2018 Hevron cell - the one where the loathsome al-Karmi's widow is a dominant figure - are given as Nizar Shehadeh and Faras Abu Sharh.

It's troubling, and frankly hard to understand, why almost no background details about the two men are given in any of the published reports.

The Shin Bet report rather laconically calls them "senior and well-known Hamas terrorists who had served prison terms several times in the past for their terrorist activity."

We went looking for background. We found that someone with Shehadeh's name was a figure in this 2004 BBC report:

"Israeli radio said troops in Hebron killed two men in a gun battle which broke out after they surrounded a militant hideout and dynamited it... Correspondents identified the two dead in Hebron as members of the Hamas militant organisation. Witnesses said one of them was a local Hamas chief called Murad Qawasmeh. The two-storey house they were hiding in belonged to Nizar Shehadeh, witnesses said, who was jailed by Israel six months ago for having links to a local charity that supported Hamas." ["Israelis kill three Palestinians", BBC News, November 25, 2004]

From the Sheikh Firas Abu Sharkh sermon video [here]

As for Faras Abu Sharh, that name didn't produce much so we cast our net a little wider than that specific Shin Bet spelling. (English isn't their first language.)

A "Firas Abu Sharkh", described as director of the Hebron municipality's library at the time, is named in a Hamas website report from February 2008, more than a decade ago. Turns out he had been taken into custody by the Israeli military - for no reason at all, naturally.

Then he was back as the director of the Hevron municipal library when this (Arabic) March 2017 report appeared.

He turns up in a new Palestinow report (in English) from August 6, 2018 where he is the only one of 14 Palestinian Arabs arrestees to be labeled "former political prisoner" and said to be from Hevron. We think he's the ring-leader mentioned by the Shin Bet.

A Google search of the Arabic version of his name leads to many hits including this Arabic news report from February 2009 where he's said to be a Hevron-area preacher known to many as Abu Wael and who "has been in the cells of the gangs of the security services for six months" - again, for no reason at all.

There's also a YouTube clip of Sheikh Abu Sharkh delivering a sermon in a Hevron mosque on June 13, 2014. [We have asked an Arabic-speaking friend to say what this angry-sounding man is addressing. Stand by.]

Hevron is nominally under the control of the Palestinian Authority which is essentially at war with Hamas. Tayseer Abu Sneineh, a convicted murderer and a member of Fatah (the largest faction in the PA) became mayor of Hebron in the elections of May 2017 ["Palestinian terrorist in killing of 6 Jews elected Hebron mayor | Tayseer Abu Shneineh to head biggest West Bank city", Times of Israel, May 14, 2017]. Fatah took 7 of the city's 15 seats but that was enough. 

Despite this, as the New York Times already pointed out in 2009 ["In Fatah-Governed West Bank, Solidarity With Hamas"], a complicated internal struggle goes on there:

Fatah leaders are growing deeply worried over popular reaction and support for its rival, Hamas, to the point of crushing recent demonstrations...  In a series of interviews, people here said they were enraged by the photographs and television images of the Palestinian dead in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which they consider part of themselves. They said that support for Hamas would grow as this conflict went on, and that they were intimidated by the Palestinian security forces of Mr. Abbas..."

In a formal statement, the Shin Bet said yesterday: 

"The exposure of the infrastructure proves once again that the Hamas headquarters in the Gaza Strip and abroad are directing Hamas activities in Judea and Samaria, through any means at their disposal, including through the use of women..."

The first woman terrorist in the service of Hamas was Ahlam Tamimi who murdered our daughter Malki and many other innocents in the bombing attack on the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria in 2001. The mutual embrace - females and Islamist savagery - has grown broader and tighter since then:

Women make good terrorists. They offer a strategic advantage in conducting terrorist attacks; as women do not conform to traditional security profiles, they typically arouse less suspicion, and their actions often garner more international media attention... [W]omen have traditionally been seen as the victims of violence, whether domestic or political. However, the historical record makes it clear that women have not just been the passive victims of terrorism, but also have played an active role. In Muslim history, although women took part in battles at the time of the Prophet Mohammed, their participation was gradually restricted, as women's roles became consigned to the private sphere... This wave of violence has not only seen women as active participants, but as proactive participants in terrorism. As the terrorist attacks continue, women will continue to play an active role in carrying out attacks, as well as mobilizing public support for further violence. ["Women’s Liberation: Violence and Palestinian Women in the Third Intifada", Haaretz, October 27, 2015]

Those calls (here for instance, and here and here and here and all over the social media) from widely-varied Arab sources, and not only Arab, for Israel to free the females being held in its prisons for terror offences come from a deep and cynical appreciation of the strategic value of women's roles in jihad. It's a fatal mistake for us to fall victim to their blandishments.

As for the gang, we think there are some more disclosures not yet made.

22-Jun-18: At a sacred and ancient site, the bombs and attackers keep coming

Violence at the ancient and sacred Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hevron is in today's news - again (see "10-Feb-18: Two more Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attacks thwarted; both perpetrators are just 15" and "09-Feb-18: At the Tomb of Patriarchs, yet another thwarted Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attack" for some background.)
Here's what we know till now:

Israeli Border Police on Friday [today] said that they found two explosive devices in a courtyard of a home not far from the Tomb of the Patriarch’s in the West Bank City of Hebron. Police bomb disposal experts were called to the scene where they successfully neutralized the explosives without incident or injuries and "prevented any further danger to the units or to civilians," according to a police spokesman. The explosives were found in the courtyard of a home located next to one of the security check points where "security measures are implemented... Security measures continue in the area to prevent attacks of all kinds,” said police. ["Israeli police diffuse two explosive devices near Tomb of Patriarchs in Hebron", June 22, 2018, i24news.tv]

This happened three days earlier

An improvised explosive device was thrown at police guarding the entrance of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron Tuesday night, police said. The attacker fled the scene after throwing the bomb at border guards manning a station just outside the tomb. The device did not explode and there were no injuries. Police said they were searching the area for the perpetrator and had opened an investigation in the incident... In the area of the tomb, there is unique coexistence that the security forces, including border police, protect with the goal of allowing freedom of worship and religion to both Jews and Muslims at the Tomb of the Patriarchs,” police said in a statement after the incident. “The soldiers will continue to work with determination and professionalism to protect the security of all the citizens, residents and visitors to the site,” it said... ["Bomb thrown at border police at Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron, no injuries", Times of Israel, June 20, 2018]

And eleven days ago

A bomb found near the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron was detonated by police on Sunday. Border police stationed outside of the ancient historic and religious site noticed the suspicious device and scrambled sappers to the area, clearing it of all civilians. The device, which included two small gas canisters, was blown up by the police bomb squad in a controlled explosion, near one of the entrances typically used by Muslims. Police launched an investigation, and issued a statement in which they promised to “protect the security of all the citizens, residents and visitors” to the Judea burial place of biblical forbears Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob and Leah.
According to local law enforcement, “in the area of the tomb, there is unique coexistence that the security forces, including border police, protect with the goal of allowing freedom of worship and religion to both Jews and Muslims at the Tomb of the Patriarchs.” ["Bomb near Tomb of the Patriarchs detonated by police", Jewish News Syndicate, June 11, 2018]

The Cave of Machpelah - part of the Tomb of the Patriarchs complex, is "the world's most ancient Jewish site and the second holiest place for the Jewish people, after Temple Mount in Jerusalem... Over 300,000 people visit Ma'arat HaMachpelah annually. The structure is divided into three rooms: Ohel Avraham, Ohel Yitzhak, and Ohel Ya'akov. Presently Jews have no access to Ohel Yitzhak, the largest room, with the exception of 10 days a year." [Jewish Virtual Library]

23-Jan-18: A would-be-stabber, a knife, an ancient and sacred religious site... again

Our previous post went up Sunday ["21-Jan-18: Friday's terror and the lens of history"] and reports on three Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks from Friday, one of which was directed at the ancient and sacred Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hevron.

Well, this morning we have another at that same site. From Times of Israel last night (Monday):

Palestinian man caught trying to enter Hebron holy site with knife
Jacob Magid | 22 January 2018, 9:05 pm  0
Border Police arrested a Palestinian man in the West Bank city of Hebron on Monday, after finding a knife hidden under his clothes at the entrance to the Tomb of the Patriarchs holy site. Officers asked the man, in his 30s, to walk through a metal detector upon his arrival at the checkpoint. While the device did not sound an alarm, the statement from Border Police said the security forces still suspected the Palestinian and conducted a full body search. “An initial investigation revealed that the suspect was apparently intending to carry out a stabbing attack,” Border Police said. The Palestinian, said to be from the nearby village of Dura, was detained and transferred for questioning. “Beyond the technological means at the disposal of the soldiers in their missions, there is no substitute for the professionalism and alertness of the fighters, who once again managed to prevent an attack and thereby save lives,” the Border Police statement concluded. The Tomb of the Patriarchs is a frequent target for stabbing attacks.

Dura is a town of some 30,000 Arabs, located roughly 10 km south of Hevron. It has gotten mentioned in many of our blog reports of terror attacks.

24-Oct-13: Dead terrorists: how many are being delivered?

Al Akhras and one of her victims [Newsweek,
April 15, 2002]

Maan News Agency says tonight:

Israeli authorities agreed Thursday to return the bodies of seven Palestinians killed by the Israeli army, a Palestinian official told Ma'an. Salem Khelleh, an official in charge of a national campaign to return the remains to West Bank families, said Israel would deliver the bodies to Qalqiliya on Nov. 5. Khelleh told Ma'an the names of the seven deceased Palestinians: Ahmad Yasser Saleh from Asira al-Qibliya - Nablus; Ayat al-Akhras from Dheisheh refugee camp - Bethlehem; Sami Bsharat from Tammun - Jenin; Majdi Khanfar from Silat al-Dhahr - Jenin; Mohammad Mustafa Shahin from Doura - Hebron; Ahmad Ayed al-Faqih from Dura - Hebron; Mahmoud al-Qawasmi - Hebron. Before the bodies are delivered to their respective families, Khelleh said, they will be taken to the medical center at al-Quds University for DNA testing. Israel's decision to return the bodies comes in conjunction with the US-brokered peace talks with the Palestinians.

Al-Masri, the young religious fanatic from a wealthy Palestinian Arab family who exploded his guitar case inside the Sbarro restaurant on August 9, 2001, murdering 15 people including our daughter Malki, is not named in Ma'an's seven (see the background here).