27-Sep-19: Weaponized Palestinian Arab children and more Arab-on-Israel stabbings

Image Source

From Israel National News, an on-duty Israel Police officer was stabbed in Jerusalem's Old City Thursday afternoon.

The attack on the woman is being treated as a terror attack. Her injuries were relatively mild (for a stabbing); she was brought to Jerusalem's Shaare Zedek Medical Center for treatment.

The knifer was apprehended after being wrestled to the ground (not shot, not beaten to a pulp) and taken into custody by other officers at the scene. Israel's Channel 13 News shows a video clip [here] and says the attacker is a Palestinian Arab boy of thirteen.

Thirteen. Yet another weaponized child. A life incomprehensibly cheapened, and in danger of being wasted before it gets underway.

Referring to this child assailant, Times of Israel says he approached a cluster of officers at the Temple Mount’s Chain Gate (in Hebrew: Sha'ar Hashalshelet), above the Western Wall area, around 4:00 pm. He pulled out a knife and in the customary way attempted to stab anyone he could, indiscriminately. Any Jew would do.

We expect he will now become another poster child for the irresponsible human rights industry's pleas for Israel to stop arresting children. Listening, Amnesty?

A day earlier, Wednesday, an Israeli woman of about twenty was stabbed in another act of Arab-on-Israel terrorism near the busy Maccabim/Shilat Junction on Route 443. That's the major highway that runs between Jerusalem and the airport.

The website of i24News reports that the woman was standing at a bus stop which is adjacent to the main entrance to the city of Modi’in. For what it's worth, the bus stop is inside the Green Line which is frequently - and totally misleadingly - called the 1967 border. (It's simply the 1949 armistice line, nothing more.) The Arabb news reports we have seen tell their readers that this was an attack on settlers in some occupied place. It's a powerful form of incitement, too good to skip by troubling themselves with checking the actual facts.

The Israeli victim received emergency medical treatment at the scene and was brought to Tel Hashomer Medical Center in Tel Aviv. Her condition was described as light to moderate in a Magen David Adom bulletin.

We found this security camera footage on an Arab news site (the contents almost certainly originated with an Israeli source):



A 14-year-old Palestinian Arab male was taken into custody at the scene. Yes, 14. Yet another weaponized child. Who says the Palestinian Arab education system produces nothing notable?

Child weaponization by the Palestinian Arab despots of their people's children is a subject that enrages us. That's one reason why we address it so frequently. Click here for some our prior posts on this deplorable and ongoing phenomenon.

[This post, like a number of others before it, has been translated to Polish ("Zamienione w broń palestyńskie dzieci") by courtesy of Malgorzata Koraszewska over on the Listy z naszego sadu website. Our sincere thanks to her, and great appreciation to readers of this blog in Poland.]

UPDATE Thursday October 10, 2019: The stabber in the video above, the attack near Modi'in, turns out to be all of fifteen. Times of Israel reports today

15-year-old Palestinian indicted for stabbing Israeli woman near Modiin
Teen charged with terror offenses for attack at Maccabim Junction on Route 443 last month
October 10, 2019 at 2:18 pm | Prosecutors on Thursday indicted a 15-year-old on terror charges for stabbing an Israeli woman near the central city of Modiin last month. According to the indictment, the teenage boy is accused of carrying out a terror attack, illegal possession of a knife and entering Israel illegally. The prosecution has requested that the suspect be detained until the end of legal proceedings. The 22-year-old woman was stabbed on September 25 at the Maccabim Junction along Route 443. She was treated in a hospital for a stab wound to her upper body. Police said a Border Police officer was also lightly hurt while restraining the suspect. According to police, Border Police officers driving on Route 443 spotted the suspect trying to flee and chased after him on foot. The officers fired a number of bullets in the air, and collared the suspect a few hundred meters from the scene of the stabbing.

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.

09-Mar-16: Another Arab-on-Israeli attack in Jerusalem this morning

Scene of this morning's shooting near the Old City
[Image Source: Social media]

Police and ambulance sirens have been in the air non-stop this morning in the part of Jerusalem where we live.

A pair of Palestinian Arab men traveling in a car shot and critically injured an Israeli man this morning as he was standing at or close to the Jerusalem Light Rail line on Ha-Tzanhanim Street, beside the walls of the Old City and a 2 minute stroll from Damscus Gate.

Times of Israel says the two occupants of the vehicle were shot dead by Israel Police officers at the scene and that the shooters are

likely the same men who had carried out a failed shooting attack at a Jerusalem public bus elsewhere in Jerusalem earlier in the morning. They had opened fire on a number 32 Egged bus at the Ramot Junction in the city’s northwest. There were no injuries in the earlier shooting attack, and police launched a search for the vehicle that was seen driving away from the location.

The guns found inside the attack vehicle by
police after the two shooters were
eliminated this morning  next to the Old
City walls [Image Source]

And as if to remind us that everyone - Jews, Moslems, Christians, residents, visitors, old, young, soldiers, civilians - face the exact same danger from the jihadists, it quotes an ambulance service paramedic, Muhammad Abed al-Rahman, an employee of Magen David Adom, who treated the victim of the attack:

"We administered life-saving treatment to him and quickly took him away while keeping him sedated and on respiration. He is in serious condition."

And indeed, it turns out (according to an Israel National News update) that the man seriously injured in the gunfire was a Jerusalem Arab of about 50 named Imad Abu Ali. He too (like the Israeli victims of yesterday's gun attack) suffered a shooting injury to the head. That's where the jihadists are instructed to aim.

Ma'an News Agency's spin is, unsurprisingly, consistent with past form:

"Israeli police shot dead two Palestinians outside Jerusalem's Old City on Wednesday morning after they allegedly carried out a shooting... They were later identified as Abdul-Malak Saleh abu Kharoub,19, and and Muhammad Jamal al-Kalouti, 21."

The report published by Ma'an for its Arabic readers is, naturally, cast a little differently, inevitably describing both dead men as "martyrs". On one view, that's an odd thing to call a couple of well-armed toughs who opened fire from inside a moving car at a bus-load of rush-hour civilian passengers - which is what they did in Ramot this morning - and then a little later on passers-by in a predominantly-Arab part of the city.

But since their very well-funded news reporting is backed by such governments and major donors as the Human Rights and International Law Secretariat, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, UK, EU, US, UNESCO, UNDP and the Arab Human Rights Fund, who are we to judge?

23-Jan-12: Caught some more terrorists

In Jerusalem today, the police along with Shin Bet agents arrested two senior Hamas people: Muhammad Totah and Khaled Abu-Arfa. Ynet calls them "activists from east Jerusalem", while reports from Egypt describe them as "law-makers" without actually pointing out how out of date that affiliation is: the Palestinian parliament has held no sessions since 2007.

The interesting part is that Totah and Abu-Arfa have been taking refuge inside the International Committee of the Red Cross building at 8 Nabi Shu'eib Street in east Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood  for the past 18 months. (Those facts are confirmed by the ICRC, according to this report.) 

There had earlier been a third member in their little party, another Hamas man by the name of Ahmad Attoun. He was lured out and arrested several months ago.

This source reported back in March 2011 that the Hamas fugitives were themselves personally involved in the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit in 2006. They were to be deported from Jerusalem in summer 2010, but fled instead to the Red Cross building in Jerusalem on 1st July 2010 where they

"held court on a daily basis with no protest from their hosts... During that time, they've held a number of press conferences and met with foreign dignitaries, including former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Every Friday, dozens of East Jerusalem residents gather at the Red Cross to hold prayers as a show of support."

The Jerusalem Post says today that the Hamas fugitives had been quite open about their goals with their Red Cross hosts. They notified ICRC officials from the first that they planned to hold protests on the Red Cross premises to draw attention to "their situation". 

Evidently no one inside the Red Cross objected. Instead:

"The Red Cross has provided the politicians with a room inside the building where they can sleep and keep their belongings, a bathroom, electricity for their large protest tent, and a water cooler, it is understood. Family members came daily to bring food and clothes." [JPost]

Ten months ago, when the CBN report was first published, a spokesperson for the Red Cross, Cecilia Goin, said "hosting" the Hamas fugitives was "in line with the organization's humanitarian mission". She made no reported comment on the terrorist nature of the Hamas mission, which to us seems a bizarre and disturbing omission for a humanitarian body's official representative.

The ICRC has a relatively proud history - with some question marks. Started in 1863 as "an independent and neutral organization" and based today in Geneva, its mandate stems from the Geneva Conventions of 1949. With 12,000 people in 80 countries, its work is funded by donations. The ICRC's sole objective is

"to ensure protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and strife. It does so through its direct action around the world, as well as by encouraging the development of international humanitarian law and promoting respect for it by governments and all weapon bearers."

Magen David Adom (Red Star of David) ambulance
destroyed by Arab marauders near Jerusalem's central post
office, February 1948 [source]

The ICRC's activities in our part of the world have not been without controversy. 

For decades, the ICRC refused admission to the Israeli Magen David Adom organization, Israel's national emergency service. The ostensible reason was that MDA uses a Jewish symbol, the star of David. The MDA request to join came in 1931, and was accepted only in 2006 - seventy-five years later. 

In 1929, the ICRC approved the use of the the Red Crescent and Red Lion and Sun. The Jewish star was evidently a step too far.  

In a March 2000 letter to the International Herald Tribune, Dr. Bernadine Healy, then president of the American Red Cross, wrote:  "The international committee's feared proliferation of symbols is a pitiful fig leaf, used for decades as the reason for excluding the Magen David Adom — the Shield (or Star) of David." In protest, and starting in 2000, the American Red Cross withheld millions in administrative funding to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

Meanwhile elsewhere in the area: Ynet reports this afternoon that undercover agents arrested two Hamas terrorists near Jenin in the Fatah-controlled West Bank earlier today. The two were in possession of an improvised weapon which, according to the suspicion, they planned to use in a shooting attack on Israeli vehicles.