27-Jul-16: The Hamas terrorists who murdered Rabbi Miki Mark are located and forcibly retired

In the PA-controlled village of Surif this morning, the body of a
terrorist gunman is removed by IDF soldiers [Image Source]

Violent riots erupted in the PA-controlled village of Surif, north of Hebron, early this morning (Wednesday) as a joint IDF, Shin Bet and Israel Police operation trapped the four-person terror cell that murdered Rabbi Michael Mark, the executive director of the Otniel Hesder Yeshiva, on July 1 [link] and seriously injured his wife and children. The victims of that attack were traveling in a car that came under murderous gunfire on Route 60 ["01-Jul-16: The drive-by shooting near Otniel"].

Times of Israel reports that the members of the Hamas-aligned terror cell

opened fire at the Israeli troops from inside the house in which he was hiding, and the IDF responded by firing several anti-tank missiles... The IDF then used a bulldozer to knock down most of the building, and when the troops finally entered the destroyed home they found Fakih dead inside...

One of the cell members, Muhammad al-Fakih, 29, died and three others were taken into custody, unharmed. According to Reuters this morning

Islamist group Hamas identified the man killed in the raid as Mohammad al-Fakih and it said he was a member of its armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades

The Ma'an News Agency version follows the customary template, starting with the title of the piece: "Palestinian accused of Hebron shooting killed after Israeli forces bombard house":

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that five Palestinians were shot with rubber-coated bullets during clashes in Surif. [IDF Spokesperson Avichai Edre'i] confirmed that a Palestinian woman sustained minor wounds during the military attack and was taken to a hospital for treatment, adding that a Kalashnikov machine gun and a grenade were found in the house. Locals said Israeli forces detained four Palestinians from Surif during the raid, identified as Ahmad Ibrahim al-Hur, Diyaa Khalid Ghneimat, and Muhammad Ali al-Heeh, the owner of the demolished house in which Faqih was hiding. Al-Heeh’s mother was also detained... Faqih himself was from the village of Dura in southern Hebron. [Ma'an, July 28, 2016]

The Arabic edition of the Ma'an story, again following the customary approach of one version for the Arabic speakers, a specifically different and carefully sanitized one for foreigners, says

The [Israeli] army claimed to find gun-type rifles and grenades next to the martyr... ["Martyrdom of a citizen after bombing and besieging of a home in Surif", Ma'an Arabic, July 28, 2016]

A martyr al-Fakih assuredly is becoming as we write these lines. Hamas, which de facto controls large swathes of the nominally Fatah/PA towns and villages of the mis-named "West Bank" (a name given to it for the first time by the Jordanian occupation forces who conquered it militarily in the course of the 1947-49 War of Independence in which the most of the Arab world sought to destroy the nascent state of Israel), is active now preparing for a showcase funeral and demonstrations of rage and power. These, as always, are intended not only as a token of how far away peace is, but to show that the PA - with all its foreign aid, its police and its European-supplied limousines for insiders - actually takes a back seat to the Hamas organizers on the ground.

01-Jul-16: The drive-by shooting near Otniel

The victims' vehicle flipped after the people inside came under
a massive hail of gun-fire [Image Source]

We know more now about the innocent victims of today's Arab-on-Israeli attack on a civilian vehicle and the civilians traveling in it near Otniel, south of Hebron. They are members of a single family.

Times of Israel says

An Israeli man was killed Friday afternoon and his wife was seriously hurt when their family car came under gunfire from a passing vehicle and overturned, south of the West Bank city of Hebron. The couple’s children were also hurt. A 14-year-old daughter was in moderate-to-serious condition and a 15-year-old son was lightly injured... The family’s car flipped over due to the attack, close to Beit Hagai on Route 60, the army said.

Israel National News adds that the

wife was seriously wounded in the attack, and was evacuated to Jerusalem's Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital with multiple gunshot wounds to her upper body... According to initial reports, a Kia sedan overtook the family as they drove along Route 60 and opened fire, striking both parents and causing the car to overturn. As many as 20 shots were fired at the car, investigators say. The victims are reportedly a well-known family from the area, who live close to another family struck by a deadly terrorist attack during the latest wave of Arab terror. IDF forces responded quickly and are currently pursuing the terrorists who carried out the attack.

Though no announcement of an official kind has been made yet about the identity of the family, names are being mentioned in corners of the social media and it does indeed appear the family are well-known, and connected with a major educational institution in the area of the attack.

UPDATE: Very sorry to have to report this: "Grief and Tears as Rabbi Michael Mark, Hy”d, Is Laid to Rest", Hamodia, July 3, 2016

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.

08-May-16: For Israeli victims of terror, a fruitless search for signs of genuine decency and humanity at the UN

The Meir family bury their wife and mother in January [Image Source]

Remember the murder of Dafna Meir, a Jewish nurse and a young mother of six children?

We wrote about it here ["18-Jan-16: Multiple Arab-on-Israeli attacks and a Jewish mother is murdered at her front door"]. We noted at the time that the BBC had managed to report that savage murder - by a youth who stabbed her to death at the door to her Otniel home in the presence of her children - without mentioning the word "terror" (or any variant of it) even once. A death. Maybe a crime. Perhaps an accident. Next.

Mrs Meir's husband, at the urging of one of the Israeli terror victim groups, went to the United Nations along with his oldest daughter Ranana, aged 17, on April 19, 2016 to be present at a UN Security Council debate on the Middle East that was scheduled to touch on matters concerning the Arab/Israel conflict. (Background at Israel National News and Jerusalem Post.)

How well do you imagine that went? Our own quite negative experiences at the UN gave us reason to be deeply pessimistic when we read about the Meirs' impending trip. It turned out to be traumatic and upsetting and they want people to know.

Natan Meir has just sent a brief open letter to the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, reflecting on the quite shocking way he and his daughter and their message were treated and making some serious points about how diplomats view real, live, in-the-flesh terror victims when they occupy the same room. It's searing.

Excerpts from the letter which he has now published via Facebook:

• "Israel's UN ambassador introduced me and my daughter and told our story. Not one UN ambassador bothered to come and comfort my 17-year-old daughter. No one came to shake our hands. No one called or met with us before or after. Not one letter."
• "Even you, Mr. Secretary General, you were sitting at the front of that meeting and you did not open your mouth nor look in the eyes of someone in who is in anguish and pain.”
• “In our presence, the Palestinian representative complained that hundreds of Palestinian children are in Israeli prisons. One of the children he talked about murdered my wife! Despite the terrible scandal of misrepresentation, nobody prevented him from continuing his speech...”
• "How can the United Nations strive to be relevant when there is not a single drop of basic human compassion? How can delegates not look directly in the eyes of a man who has all the right to condemn another person? Where is the honesty? Where is the human aspiration that was the basis of establishing the institution you lead? Can such an organization prevent hatred, animosity and inequality?” 
• “Dear Secretary-General, as the UN celebrates the rights of the Palestinians, they must also remember the Jewish national desire to reclaim their cities, which they have longed for thousands of years. Billions of people worldwide know of the Jews and their deep connection to the Biblical land of Israel. A peaceful solution must also take into account the dream of the Jewish people. "
• "If you still insist on helping, please help us to build bridges and connections between people without borders and fences."

We hope Natan Meir and his family take the shattering reality of their close encounter with the very, very ordinary men and women who populate the world's most important international organization and turn it into additional inspiration to keep speaking out in the name of their loss and their prayers for a better future. What they have to say is far more meaningful than the delegates' speeches and studied indifference. 

Sitting back and waiting for a political or diplomatic process to bring something constructive and sustainable to our side or for that matter to the Arabs is, it has to be said, not only a waste of time but, as we have seen ourselves, deeply humiliating and harmful to the human spirit. This, emphatically, is not how things should be.

We plan to come back to this issue later in the week.

19-Jan-16: Children with knives and what they destroy

The victim's family arrive at the cemetery for Monday's funeral [Image Source: Reuters]

Anyone paying attention to the nature of the many Arab-on-Israeli attacks launched on Israel's streets and inside its shops and homes and buses these past four months (in particular) will be struck by an aspect that continues to go largely un-noted by the mainstream news reporting media: the age of the attackers. Many of them are children. (Click for some recent posts about child-executed terror attacks against Israelis.)

An individual believe by authorities to be the killer of Dafna Meir z"l was arrested overnight (early Tuesday morning), according to Times of Israel:

The suspect, said to be 15 years old, was arrested by IDF troops and agents from the Shin Bet security service in a village near Otniel, where he was hiding out, and was taken in for interrogation. He is suspected of entering Meir’s home and killing her before fleeing the scene. Three of Meir’s six children were home when she was killed, and one, 17-year-old Renanaa, gave security forces a description of the terrorist. Police officers and IDF soldiers set up roadblocks in the area surrounding the settlement as they launched a manhunt for the stabber, who was believed to have escaped to a nearby village, possibly Khirbet Karme, located just north of Otniel, on foot. According to reports Tuesday morning, he did not possess a permit allowing him to work in Otniel, despite early assessments to the contrary.

Haaretz says the finding and arrest of the boy, said to be named Marawad Badr Abdallah Ada'is, was done by soldiers in the Duvdevan unit

an elite special operations force within the Israel Defense Forces, directly subordinate to the Judea and Samaria Division. Duvdevan are particularly noted for conducting undercover operations against militants in urban areas. During these operations, Duvdevan soldiers typically wear Arab civilian clothes as a disguise... [Wikipedia]

The knife-wielding attacker who seriously wounded a pregnant Israeli woman in Tekoa yesterday is allegedly fifteen. Other recent Arab-on-Israeli knifers have been as young as 11. [See "11-Oct-15: Weaponizing children".]

The Arab home front generally provides a reliable cover for fugitive killers of Jews, hence the need for expert undercover security people to go right inside those towns and villages and extract the alleged killers and terror-minded thugs who can be expected to otherwise remain clutched close to the nurturing bosom of Palestinian Arab society. As for outrage and condemnation, there may be some Palestinian Arab voices but no one hears them and they don't get reported - assuming they exist.

The moral depravity that brings government officials and ordinary folk to stand with, instead of against, the wielders of kitchen knifes and axes is mirrored by the strategic silence of the world's well-funded children's rights industry -  UNICEF, Defence for Children International, Human Rights Watch, UNESCO, Child Rights International Network, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Washington-based Jerusalem Fund, Save the Children, Arab Council for Childhood Development to name just a few donor-supported, PR-savvy entities who have seem to have collectively lost their voices, their senses and their moral compasses when it comes to what Palestinian Arab society is doing to their own children. And to ours. 

(We no longer mention Amnesty International in that list. Amnesty's increasingly explicit identification with the practitioners of the Palestinian Arab brand of terror makes plain their abandonment of principle and betrayal of their supporters' values. There's no longer anything to expect from them.)

The arrest, in the wake of an intense manhunt, came some hours after the funeral of his victim:

Hundreds arrived at [Jerusalem's] Givat Shaul cemetery on Monday morning to accompany Dafna Meir, who was murdered by a terrorist in her home, on her final journey. Meir, 38, is survived by her husband Natan and their six children: Renana, 17, Akiva, 15, Ahava, 10, Noa, 11, Yair, six, and Yaniv, four. The four older children are Dafna and Natan's biological children, and the two younger ones - Yaniv and Yair - are brothers that the couple adopted. At their mother's funeral, the children could not stop crying... [Ynet, January 18, 2016]

Image Source

Children with knives: it's a phenomenon worth pondering as Red Hand Day, February 12 each year, approaches. So too is the choking silence that accompanies the devastation it brings. (If you visit the Red Hand Day website, notice that it is published in four languages but Arabic is not one of them.)

Given what a heavy toll the reality of killers-who-are-children exacts from Palestinian Arab society, it's surely top of the list of matters to which the lavishly-funded editors of Ma'an News Agency will be turning their journalistic attention and moral fury today. Let's just not stop breathing while we wait.

18-Jan-16: May it be Your will...

Source: Kolech

Dafna Meir was stabbed to death Sunday at the door of the Otniel home she and her husband Natan made for their family of four biological children and two additional children they fostered. The killer is still on the run.

Mrs Meir was a nurse - which in Israeli hospitals always means nursing patients who are Jewish, Moslem, Christian and whoever else needs nursing - and a guide to many. She also managed to write a blog (in Hebrew, naturally enough), Women's Ways.

There, she published a prayer she had composed while studying for an exam in the Neurosurgery department at Beer Sheva's Soroka Hospital where she worked. That prayer has today been rendered into English (sincere thanks to Rochel Sylvetsky-Tabak)
and was originally published earlier today on the Israel National News site.

We hope it is copied and conveyed widely.

May it be Your Will, Creator of the world, He Who manages it with mercy and loving kindness, to grant me the ability to give medications to Your people in need of salvation, and also to the members of other nations who are in the devoted care of your faithful messengers, who continue their holy work day and night, on the Sabbath and holidays, without letup.
Grant that I understand, remember and realize, that the medications are a gift from You, and their efficacy is Your message to us.
Grant that I view and feel joy at their beneficial influence of the medications I, mercifully, can give those who are ill.
Grant me the ability to concentrate when giving out these medicines, to understand the way each acts on disease.
Grant that I notice in time any of my errors or those of my colleagues when handing out medications, and that I act quickly to correct the errors before the medication enters the body of the patient.
Grant that I act with modesty, learn and teach others about the successes and failures in giving medication.
Grant that I give medications to the sick from a position of good health and that I remember to be grateful that I myself do not have to take them.
Grant that I learn to have empathy, although in good health, with the patient's suffering and help him with all my ability every day and every hour, using the tools that You have given me.
Amen.

May her memory be as a blessing.

And see "Sometimes I feel we are in a game of Russian Roulette" which Dafna Meir Z"L wrote recently about her thoughts on security and danger. That too was translated by Rochel Sylvetsky-Tabak.

18-Jan-16: On a death in a settlement house

Source: BBC [Archived]

Many Israelis will be
reflecting in sorrow today as the young murdered mother we described in yesterday's post is buried later this morning in the soil of Jerusalem.

Others will be thinking about the shabby journalistic values that lie behind the headline on the BBC report of her death at the hands of a terrorist.

The word "terrorist" is of course politely omitted from the report, as is the custom at the politically-correct BBC. So is any meaningful description of her foreshortened life. The headline is silent as to who "stabbed to death" this loving and inspirational Jewish woman, described in the body text as simply "a mother in her late 30s".

What's not missing is the implied justification for her brutal and cruel slaying, done in front of three of her young children: she was a resident of an "Otniel settlement house". Case proven and closed,

News consumers and news producers for whom "settlement" says everything they need to know about the ongoing war of terror being waged against Jews in their homeland won't give the matter a second thought. They will very likely be unaware of the positive meaning the expression "settlement house" has had for more than a century. The BBC's editors surely had no positive intentions in choosing that odd way to characterize an act of primal savagery whose name they don't even dare to pronounce.

18-Jan-16: Multiple Arab-on-Israeli attacks and a Jewish mother is murdered at her front door

Kiryat Moshe's Harav Reines Street in Jerusalem [Google Maps]

Sunday was a hard day here, and made harder still by the way life-and-death events affecting Israelis are being routinely swept under the carpet or simply ignored by the vast swathes of the global news-reporting industry.

The day's first notable violence came early Sunday morning here in Jerusalem. What could easily have become a repeat of a terrible tragedy that struck this city 14 months ago ["19-Nov-14: In the wake of Tuesday's murderous attack on Jewish worshipers in Jerusalem"] was averted. The line between what might have been and what was, and the impact on many lives, is terrifyingly thin.

Three Palestinian Arab men were stopped and arrested outside the Heichal Yaakov synagogue on Harav Reines Street in the capital's Kiryat Moshe quarter soon after dawn - peak hour in many synagogues - after arousing suspicions among people who watch for precisely such threats. The three turned out to be armed with crude but lethal knives and according to an Israel National News report

are believed to have planned to carry out an attack on the synagogue as it was packed with worshipers attending morning prayers.

After interrogating them, the police say they are open to a far milder interpretation: that the weapons were for car-theft purposes, but that the investigation remains ongoing [Times of Israel, January 17, 2016].

The would-be knife-attacker: Unharmed though
her lethal intentions were thwarted,
perhaps postponed

A stabbing attack was thwarted at the western entrance to Kiryat Arba, near Hebron a little later in the day. A Palestinian Arab woman - named in Arab media as Nivin Muhsin al-Jaabari, and said to be 18,.was intercepted with a knife secreted in her handbag. Forced at gunpoint to crouch on the road and remove her coat, her concealed weapon was revealed, and she was arrested; no one was hurt.

Another attempted stabbing attack took place during Sunday afternoon at the Samaria Regional Brigade Junction, better known here as Bahad 3. Wikipedia explains that Bahad [in Hebrew: בה"ד‎] stands for Basis Hadrakha meaning training base. There are several Bahads around the country; Bahad 3 is a school for infantry.

Alert soldiers opened fire before he could harm any of his intended victims. The attacker is now dead. An Associated Press bulletin names him as Wissam Qasrawi, 21, from a village called Mesilyeh near Jenin.

By far the most serious of today's Arab-on-Israeli violence is the murder of an Israeli woman, the mother of six children, in a horrific stabbing attack at the door of her home in Otniel, a town in southern Har Hevron.

The victim of today's murder in Otniel, and her husband

We now know the murdered woman is Dafna Meir, 39 (though it's striking that her name is absent from many of the non-Israeli news reports - like that of AP - that mentioned the killing). She was a hospital nurse who, with her husband, adopted two children to add to the four to whom she gave birth.

Her killer is on the loose, and a major manhunt is now underway. Says the BBC, without ever resorting the use of the word "terror":

Security forces are hunting for the attacker using helicopters and military vehicles.
Roadblocks have been set up, residents were told to lock themselves inside their homes and flares lit the night sky as the manhunt went on.

Witnesses to the attack, quoted by Israel National News, say the killer worked in the town "and used his familiarity with the community to carry out the attack." From other sources, we understand he worked in construction. His victim will be remembered as a woman of principles and constructive activism - as well as fierce and heroic determination:

Initial investigations indicated that Meir wrestled with the attacker in an effort to protect the three of her children who were in the home during the attack. The stabber fled the scene without continuing the attack and before he could reach the children. Media reports said her teenage daughter witnessed the attack and described the terrorist to authorities... [Times of Israel, January 17, 2016]

Mrs Meir, of blessed memory, will be laid to rest later today (Monday) in Jerusalem's Har Hamenuchot cemetery, just a short walk from Kiryat Moshe where Sunday's violence began.

15-Nov-15: An arrest after Friday's murderous attack on an Israeli family

Netanel Litman Z"L

From Israel National News this morning:

It has been cleared for publication that a joint security operation between the Shin Bet security forces and IDF Duvdevan counter-terrorism forces succeeded in capturing one of the terrorists behind in the murder of Rabbi Ya'akov Litman and his son Netanel on Friday. Security forces also seized what they believe to be the murder weapon, as well as the vehicle that was used in the shooting attack close to the town of Otniel. Under interrogation the terrorist implicated himself in the attack... This morning, it was further revealed that one of the terrorists actually opened the back passenger door of the car after peppering it with bullets, and came face-to-face with the family's 12-year-old daughter Moriah, who shouted "No!" The terrorist did not open fire, and security forces are investigating if this was the result of his weapon jamming... Moriah immediately recognized the terrorist's picture when she was shown a lineup of five suspects by Shin Bet security personnel.

The background is here:

• 14-Nov-15: Friday's lethal attack destroyed an Israeli family preparing for their daughter's wedding
• 13-Nov-15: Again: Israeli lives extinguished by Pal Arab terrorists

R Ya'akov Litman Z"L

Ynet reports on the heart-rending eulogies delivered at last night's funerals for the father and son:

Hundreds of family and friends accompanied the father and son on their final journey, including President Reuven Rivlin, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, GOC Central Command Roni Numa, and Deputy Defense Minister Eli Ben-Dahan. The two slain Israelis were on their way with their family to wedding preparations ahead of daughter Sarah Tehiya's wedding when terrorists opened fire at their vehicle near the West Bank settlement of Otniel. A third family member, 16, was lightly wounded in the attack. Three of the family's girls and the mother, who witnessed the father and son shot, were lightly hurt and suffering from shock. [Ynet]

14-Nov-15: Friday's lethal attack destroyed an Israeli family preparing for their daughter's wedding

Site of the Friday afternoon murders, near Otniel [Image Source: EPA]

Some additional aspects of the tragedy ["13-Nov-15: Again: Israeli lives extinguished by Pal Arab terrorists"] we reported here Friday afternoon, just before the peace and spirituality of the Sabbath arrived.

Times of Israel reports that Rabbi Ya’akov Litman, 40, and his son Netanel, 18, were murdered in the shooting attack around 3:00 pm Friday near the Jewish community of Otniel. They along with other members of the family, residents of the Kiryat Arba community, were driving from their home to Meitar, near Be'er Sheva, for what sounds to us, from the vague description in the news reports, to be a Shabbat Hatan, the celebration of the upcoming wedding (set for November 17) of their daughter and sister. She was evidently not in the family van. Instead of a welcome, joyous and presumably long-awaited celebration, the Litmans and their family and friends have had to arrange a funeral for the father and son in Jerusalem tonight.

The other family members in the van were the wife and mother, a 16-year-old son and three young daughter aged 11, 9 and 5, according to Haaretz. All were lightly hurt with bruises and shrapnel injuries. Based on our familiarity with Jewish custom, the fourth daughter preparing for her wedding was very likely spending the Shabbat in or near her home with friends.

Haaretz says the gunman was waiting by the side of the road for any Israeli vehicle to drive by. Investigators found 14 bullets had been fired at the Litmans. The shooter fled, and a search has been underway since last night, focusing on the Palestinian Arab towns of Yatta and Dhahiriya.

Times of Israel says Ya’akov Litman, the driver, was wounded by the gun fire, swerved into the opposite lane, and crashed into rocks at the side of the road. Netanel called rescue services but was then also shot dead. A Channel 2 news report quoted by the news site says that after this, one of the gunmen came closer and fired additional bullets after killing the father and son.

A younger son then called the Magen David Adom hotline to report the attack, reporting as well that a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance had just driven past the scene of the attack, and had deliberately ignored them and failed to stop. (Israel is said to be filing a protest with the International Committee of the Red Cross about this. Israelis are holding their breaths waiting for a robust response from Geneva. Not.) Haaretz says the MDA team reached the scene soon afterwards, pronounced the father and son dead at the scene, and rushed the other family members to Soroka Medical Center in Be'er Sheva.

There are reports tonight that the murders were celebrated publicly by Hamas via social media.

13-Nov-15: Again: Israeli lives extinguished by Pal Arab terrorists

Tragedy has struck again as Palestinian Arab gunmen have carried out several acts of murder in an attack on a vehicle in which Jewish Israelis were traveling in the hour before sundown and the onset of Shabbat:

Unknown individuals shot at Israeli vehicles on Friday afternoon near the West Bank settlement of Otniel. Two people were killed -- a man in his 40s and a male around 18 years old. Reports after the attack claimed that the pair were father and son. A 16-year-old was wounded. The attackers fled and police have been searching the area. Police focused searches and checkpoints in the area of the Palestinian towns of as-Samu, Yatta and ad-Dhahiriya. [Ynet, now]

Times of Israel says that at around 3:00 pm this afternoon (Friday) the Magen David Adom national ambulance service received a report of gunshots fired at a car near Otniel Junction south of Hebron, In addition to a 40-year-old man and an 18-year old man who died at the scene of the murderous attack, a lightly injured victim, a 16-year-old boy, has been taken to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba for emergency treatment. Four others, evidently also passengers, were sent to Soroka to be treated for shock, all or most of them children. It appears the vehicle was carrying seven people, very likely all from one family.

There is a pursuit underway now of the gunman. With the start of the Sabbath in these moments, we will not be updating until tomorrow night.

10-Feb-14: Man's body, 'withheld' and now 'retrieved', and what it reveals about the society that buries it

The yeshiva in Otniel

If a person were incredibly naive, the report below might sound like a kind of lost-and-found happy ending space filler. It's not, and we're not.

The story comes from the so-called "independent" Palestinian Arab news channel, Ma'an News Agency (principally funded by official Danish and Netherlands sources) which published it on its website late last night, Sunday, under the header "Israel returns body of man killed 12 years earlier". The full text of the report follows:

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Israel on Sunday evening delivered the remains of Ahmad Ayid Faqih after years of withholding them from Faqih's family. A committee to retrieve remains of Palestinians held by Israel said Israeli authorities delivered the body after popular and legal pressure in the last few hours after it was announced that the delivery of the body was delayed. The campaign called for Palestinians to participate in Faqih’s funeral in his hometown of Dura, which will start with a military march in Hebron at 10 a.m. 

That's all they want us to know.

But this Ahmad Ayid Faqih, the one whose body was "withheld" for a dozen years for undisclosed reasons and then "retrieved", is an individual whose name we know. He was one of two heavily-armed, blood-lusting thugs who burst into a post-high school Yeshiva academy in the small community of Otniel, south of Hevron, on the night of December 27, 2002, intending to carry out a massacre of young Jews and partly succeeding.

Noam Apter, of
blessed memory

It was a winter Friday night, the Jewish sabbath - Shabbat as we call it. Faqih was an armed terrorist in the service of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad organization, an Islamist jihad group taking its inspiration and budget from Iranian sources and dedicated to "the destruction of Israel through violent means" according to CFR.

A second jihadist, along with Faqih, dressed in Israeli military uniforms, including battle vests, and clutching M-16 rifles and hand grenades, cut the rickety fence erected around the building of the Yeshiva. Around 7:45 pm, they managed to sneak unnoticed into the building via the kitchen. The boys on kitchen duty there were in the midst of bring laden serving plates out into the dining hall. One of them, Noam Apter, instantly perceiving the reality of what was happening in front of him, managed to hurl himself at the door leading to the dining room in the last act of his life, and bolted it before they killed him. Many were saved by Noam's selfless and instinctive action.

Three other boys, all of them of course unarmed, were killed that night: Gabriel Hoter, 17; Zvi Ziemen, 18; and Yehuda Bamberger, 20. Their names appear almost nowhere in the general press - not now, and not back then in 2002. In most parts of the news-reporting media, they were assigned the generic name "four Israelis". In Jewish circles, however, their lives were and are remembered and mourned, as they should, as victims of a war of unbridled hatred directed at them for their Jewishness and their dedication to living in and defending the land that has been the Jewish national home for more than two millennia.

And this Faqih?

All the Palestinian news media, exemplified by Ma'an's shabby report - echoed in the dark corners of the pseudo-liberal news-reporting world that take their lead from what appears in Ma'an - can bring themselves to say about him is that he is "a man killed 12 years earlier".

It would be comforting to think this choice of laconic, take-no-position language reflects a perfectly understandable embarrassment at the systematic glorification by the Palestinian Arabs of acts of savagery directed at unarmed victims. But that would be hopelessly optimistic as Elder of Ziyon points out by referring to the series of ceremonious funerals this week and last being provided by the PA for the bodies of these savages they term 'martyrs'.

Sometimes we imagine how, in years to come, generations of young Arabs are going to look into the eyes of their parents and grandparents and ask how it happened that they stood silently by while their leadership dragged them down to moral and ethical depths without parallel in modern times. For while it's one thing to have a nation infested with individuals driven by the passion to murder defenseless others, it's another to celebrate the savagery of their terrorism as exemplifications of heroism and national greatness.