11-Mar-18: Why do so many thwarted Arab-on-Israeli terrorists survive?

The IDF Samaria Military Court compound [Image Source]

If you're a regular visitor to this blog, you won't need reminding that when it comes to the deaths of Palestinian Arabs in circumstances that involve the Israeli military, there's rarely just a single agreed version of the facts. Our question in this post is: why are such deaths so rare?

Bear with us.

The Palestinian Arab side are currently - as they have periodically for years - urging news readers to accept that an innocent fisherman ["High Court delays release of Gaza fisherman’s body", Times of Israel, March 8, 2018] was killed in cold blood by Israeli naval forces. That he's dead is sadly beyond dispute, but the circumstances are not:

“We are sure that the wounded are fishermen who went out to sea to make a living – and nothing else,” the head of the union told Haaretz daily... Incidents involving IDF using excessive or deadly force against the Palestinians have been on the rise since US President Donald Trump announced his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and move the US embassy there." [RT, February 25, 2018]

Another Gazan fisherman was shot dead by Egyptian forces [Al Araby, January 13, 2018] a few weeks earlier. But for reasons that most readers can intuit, considerably less media attention has been paid to that.

Which brings us to events that unfolded in Israel's Gaza-envelope communities this morning:

Gaza resident arrested after crossing into Israel with grenade, knife | Times of Israel | March 11, 2018, 10:04 am | The IDF arrested two Palestinians early Sunday after they separately crossed the border fence from the Gaza Strip into Israel, one of them carrying weapons. The military said in a statement that troops apprehended the two Gazans shortly after they had crossed the fence. One was found carrying a grenade and a knife. The army said he is suspected of planning to carry out a terror attack in Israel. One of the suspects is from the north of the Strip while the other was from the south. The army said the two incidents appeared unrelated due to the different locations. The two were transferred to security forces for interrogation, likely by the Shin Bet security service. Gazans are apprehended crossing into Israel fairly regularly, many of them apparently seeking to escape an increasingly difficult humanitarian situation in the Strip. Suspects are believed to sometimes carry weapons in the hopes of being sent to Israeli prison rather than back to the Palestinian enclave.

It's too soon to categorize today's two Gazan Arab arrivals. Are they terrorists? Social climbers? Economic refugees?

But it's not too soon to absorb the fact that both are alive. And that at least one of them came equipped with weapons. And that Gazans entering Israel always arrive without badges stuck to their foreheads announcing that they are on jihadist missions and looking to create mayhem. That assessment has to be made in the heat of the pursuit by IDF service personnel.

Given the blood-curdling ideology which Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other like-minded terror organizations successfully pump into the heads of their followers and subjects, it's usually strategically wise to assume the most malevolent interpretation.

The intercepted pipe-bomb from the February 13, 2018 attack. The metal
ball bearings are there to rip apart the flesh of the victims [Image Source]

Just to reinforce that point, all of these incidents of terror-centered Arab-on-Israeli violence were recorded in the past 14 hours - and all were almost certainly intended to produce deaths:

• Three Palestinian Arabs armed with Molotov cocktails were apprehended by IDF forces near Route 90, one of Israel's most strategic arteries, running from the northern border all the way to Eilat in the south. It's Israel's longest road. Israel National News says: "The possibility that they are members of a terror cell that threw Molotov cocktails along central roads over the past month is being investigated."
• Around 10:55 pm last night, an IDF post located just outside Psagot, an Israeli community of about 2,000 residents, came under shooting attack.
• Then near midnight, shots were fired at soldiers manning the busy Beitunia Crossing, a short distance north of Jerusalem and close to Givat Ze'ev (no injuries, no serious damage). A manhunt is underway in both cases. The distance between the sites of the two shootings is only about 30 km.
• Police, quoted by Times of Israel, say two Palestinian Arab children, both of them 16 years old and living in Jenin, were stopped this morning by Border Police guards at the security checkpoint next to the entrance to the Samaria Military Court. It's in northern Israel in the village of Salem and close to Megiddo (called Armageddon in the Bible). They were found to be carrying pipe bombs - one per boy - concealed on their bodies. Each one also had a lighter "with which officers suspect they intended to ignite the bombs. The entrance to the court was temporarily blocked while a sapper inspected the devices, which contained explosives, and neutralized them." The background is extraordinary: though it may come as a surprise to even dedicated followers of news from our area, this morning's weaponized children were carrying out the seventh thwarted attempt at pipe-bombing that same court complex in the past four months. Previous intercepts happened on February 14, 2018 (three Palestinian Arabs arrested); February 13, 2018 (single attacker, his pipe bomb packed with metal shards); February 7, 2018 (single Palestinian Arab male attacker);  December 28, 2017 - again, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy with a pipe bomb); December 17, 2017 (a Palestinian Arab with two pipe bombs - one attached to his body under his clothing, and a second one in his coat pocket); October 15, 2017 (single attacker, one pipe bomb). Again - all aiming at the same target.

Motives don't get enough attention in this part of the world. Perhaps that's because the urgency of the task at hand and the potential price of the security people failing to act quickly enough. The result is  that there's always a premium on decisiveness and on certain prevention.

Fortunately for those Gazan infiltrators who come across the border for the personal benefits of the experience, and for the pipe-bombers turning up like lemmings at the doors of the Samaria Military Court compound, the IDF usually doesn't shoot first and ask questions later, at least when circumstances permit. If they acted differently, the number of dead thwarted terror-attackers would be substantially greater.

Let us know if you ever see a mainstream news article that reaches the same conclusion.

27-Oct-16: Thwarted: Another Arab-on-Israeli terror plot in Jerusalem, and Hamas are again involved

File photo of the Jerusalem District Court building [Image Source]

Israelis pretty much take for granted that the country's always-alert security forces will be pro-active in thwarting Palestinian Arab terrorists before their plots can run their course. But it's of course not something anyone ought to take for granted.

Mahmoud Mussa Abbasi, reportedly a 25 year-old resident of one of the settlements and suburbs of East Jerusalem (according to Times of Israel, it's Ras al-Amoud), was indicted this morning in Jerusalem District Court on terrorism charges. Arrested three weeks ago (according to Jerusalem Post) he allegedly plotted a terrorist attack in the capital -  a shooting attack targeting security forces and civilians in Jerusalem, according to the Shin Bet.

The suspect had also allegedly tried to purchase weapons for such an attack. In addition, the Shin Bet investigations found that Abbasi has supported Hamas and was involved in several prior attacks in which Molotov cocktails and stones were hurled at Israeli security forces. Investigator also found that Abbasi had attempted to acquire knowledge on manufacturing pipe bombs, although he had not actually engaged in producing an explosive. ["Shin Bet thwarts suspected Jerusalem terror plot by Arab-Israeli man", Jerusalem Post, October 27, 2016]

Hamas was also involved in another recently-thwarted plot here in the capital: "11-Oct-16: Who will live and who will die: A Hamas plot is thwarted in Jerusalem".

Though the Jerusalem Post headline terms him an Arab-Israeli, we think that's unlikely given that he lives in East Jerusalem. There's no indication of anyone else being charged but experience suggests that sometimes accomplices are brought to court at a later stage in the investigation.

Israel National News adds that the prisoner is alleged to have been involved in

a number of terror-related offenses dating back to 2014. Abbasi is accused of taking part in violent disorders, as well as making and throwing firebombs during the Protective Edge counter-terror campaign in Gaza. From July 2015 until his arrest, he allegedly made a number of Facebook posts in praise of terror attacks in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. In 2016 he allegedly destroyed the hard disk of his employer's computer after the employer was arrested by security forces.

Prosecutors said

Abbasi voiced support for the suicide bomber who attacked the number 12 bus in the Talpiot neighborhood of Jerusalem last April and the shooters at the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv who killed four people in June. “Abbasi’s arrest, and the results of his questioning, demonstrate once again the high level of threat from acts by lone attackers who are influenced by incitement on the web by terror organizations, and in particular Hamas, and who themselves incite to carry out attacks,” the Shin Bet said. ["East Jerusalem man charged with plotting shooting, backing Hamas", Times of Israel, October 27, 2016]

The shooter in a fatal Jerusalem terror attack less than three weeks ago ["09-Oct-16: In Jerusalem, first reports of Arab-on-Israeli shootings this morning"] was also connected to Hamas.

02-Aug-16: Rat poison, bruised religious sensitivities and a July bombing assault in Jerusalem

Scene of the July 17, 2016 attempted bombing outrage in the center of Jerusalem [Image Source]

We reported here a little over two weeks ago ["17-Jul-16: At a Jerusalem corner with a tragic history, a human bomb is intercepted this morning"] about the thwarting of an Arab-on-Israeli bomb attack on a Jerusalem Light Rail stop located a few meters from where our daughter Malki was murdered - with fourteen other people - by Hamas terrorists some years earlier.

Today (Tuesday), key details were revealed about the July attack. Times of Israel says Ali Abu Hassan, a student civil engineering at Hebron University, aged 21, was charged with "attempted murder, creating a weapon and conspiracy to commit a crime". Slipping into Jerusalem via the Arab neighbourhoods of Tsur Baher and Jabel Mukaber, he shaved off his beard and changed into shorts and a T-shirt "to better blend in with the Jerusalem population" and embarked on an act of intended revenge to pay Israel back for the ghastly offense to the religious sensitivities of certain kinds of Muslims: "visits by tourists and Israeli Jews to the Temple Mount”, according to a police statement given to the court.

(We checked. The Hebron University website makes no claims of offering civil engineering courses or indeed courses in any other branch of engineering. In the circumstances, it's a small issue. Perhaps he was actually enrolled in the school's Islamic Studies program - here - and preferred not to say that. Or perhaps we didn't check carefully enough.)

His weapons are worth a few moments' reflection. The alleged assailant:

was armed with three pipe bombs he had linked together into one large explosive and had covered with nails and screws dipped in rat poison. “In his bag there were also two knives and a cellphone,” police said Tuesday. Hassan researched how to make a pipe bomb that would “cause the most, and most effective, damage” on the internet and “even carried out test explosions with a number of bombs in order to check them before entering Israel,” according to a joint Shin Bet-Israel Police investigation.

Rat poison as an element in Palestinian Arab terrorists' arsenal has been pooh-pooh-ed for years by certain kinds of Western commentators (see for instance a July 2002 piece in Slate, entitled "Rat Poison Bombs Revisited: The Middle East story that refuses to die"). For the record, rat poison

...is an especially nasty bio-terror weapon.  Most rat poisons are made up of chemicals called anti-coagulants with trade names like warfarin, fumarin, diphacinone and bromadiolone.  Some also contain poisons such as strychnine. All work more or less the same way. A small mammal eats the poison and soon gets sick and dies from internal hemorrhaging. This happens because a mammalian needs to constantly manufacture coagulants to manage internal body functions.  When the coagulant is blocked, uncontrolled internal bleeding occurs... ["Bio-Terrorism in Israel", Dr Stephen Bryen, December 12, 2001] 

The thwarted bomber is said, according to police testimony at this morning's hearing, to have left what he called a final testament at the university along with a request that this be handed to his parents when the intended savagery was done. He didn't die, but all is not lost. As we noted in our original report:

Assuming he's convicted, [the] thwarted human bomb starts earning Rewards for Terror cash from the Palestinian Authority via its malevolent, ever-so-slightly-disguised prisoner payments authority. The funding all comes from European and American foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, as government officials of all the relevant countries know well - but in large measure deny. As for the man in underwear in the photo [in our earlier post - the] would-be human bomb, his financial future, and that of his dependents, is suddenly secure... [From our July 17, 2016 post]

We can't help thinking back to the terrorist and her (human) bomb who blew up the Sbarro pizzeria 15 years ago. There are strong similarities in the way Abu Hassan approached his target, according to the Times of Israel account:

On July 17, Hassan took a bus to the center of the capital and walked along Jerusalem’s popular Jaffa Road to find a target for his bombing, before stopping near the intersection with King George Street. According to investigators, he originally intended to attack a restaurant on Jaffa Road and scoped out the area to prepare for his assault. However, when he noticed the large number of passengers boarding the light rail that runs through downtown, Hassan changed his target. When he attempted to board the tram, he was stopped after he raised the suspicions of a security guard. When the guard asked to examine the contents of the bag, he noticed the bomb and called the police.

Our daughter's murderer accompanied the human bomb on a bus and taxi journey into Jerusalem from Ramallah on August 9, 2001. Both were dressed to look like Israelis and fool the security people. Tragically, this worked.

The explosives were packed with thousands of small, nasty black nails, designed to rip through human flesh and to inflict massive injuries on those lucky enough to escape death. Several of those were embedded in the cell phone case that had once been Malki's and that was handed back to us by the police after the massacre.

Once they reached the center of Jerusalem, the female terrorist, a woman of 21 who was the engineer of the massacre on behalf of Hamas, told her bomb, a young man called Al-Masri, to walk to the same intersection where the July 2016 attempt was made and, after waiting several minutes to give her enough time to flee to safety, to explode in the middle of the four-way pedestrian crossing.

But that's not what he did. He, the bomb, evidently realized that more Jewish children were inside the pizzeria than in the intersection. So he kept walking and was standing at the Sbarro pizzeria counter, right next to two pretty teens - our Malki and her friend Michal - when he ignited the explosive package concealed in the guitar case on his back. No quick thinking security man was there that day.

Like the July 17, 2016 bomber, the woman who engineered the Sbarro pizzeria massacre also became a beneficiary of the PA's loathsome Rewards for Terror scheme. She has been living in total freedom in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan since October 2011. She has received and, we assume, spent many thousands of dollars of funds that originated with gullible taxpayers in the Western countries (including the United States, the United Kingdom, Norway, France, Germany and the European Union). 

It's those payments that make that abominable safety-net for more terror possible. 

03-Nov-15: Adequately-equipped knifer intercepted en route

The security crossing [Image Source]

The Jalameh/Gilboa security crossing is in the news this morning for the third time in a few days [yesterday, and Sunday]. Israel National News reports today that a Palestinian Arab male -

was arrested on Tuesday morning at the Gilboa Crossing in Samaria, located near Jenin. The terrorist had a pipe bomb and a knife on his possession and was clearly on his way to conduct a terror attack, likely in the urban coastal region where the crossing leads to and where two attacks took place on Monday. Security forces stationed at the crossing identified the terrorist as he approached the checkpoint in a suspicious manner and proceeded to arrest him, firing in the air to get him to stop and submit. Upon investigation, he was found to be carrying a knife and pipe bomb...

The Jerusalem Post says the suspect

was arrested on the Palestinian side of the crossing, and confessed to soldiers that he was planning an attack, an army spokeswoman said. Security forces took the suspect in for questioning. There were no injuries in the incident.

Pre-emptive security measures like the one that stopped this morning's attacker get far too little credit for the life-saving results they quietly achieve. This isn't a free-speech or equal-opportunity matter but a recognition that we are surrounded by people who individually and as a society have a deep and poorly understood commitment to causing us the greatest possible harm. And with no red lines.

[Highly recommended background reading: "What Do Palestinians Want? It’s time to take a close look at an often ignored subject: what ordinary Palestinians think about Israel, Jews, and terrorist attacks on civilians" | Daniel Polisar, Mosaic Magazine, November 2, 2015]

16-Sep-15: Jerusalem Watch | Not-so-new New Year violence

Israel has just emerged from two days of national and religious observance of the New Year, and the start of the Ten Days of Penitence leading up to the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur which falls on Wednesday September 23.

Jerusalem, explicitly and by name, appears over and again in the ancient prayers recited by Jews in every corner of the world. Today's Jerusalem, no less on the minds of Jews everywhere, has been the target of escalating violence from specific quarters and with not-so-mysterious motivations. Here's our brief run-down of the past two days.

• Violence was clearly on the minds of Old City Arabs by Sunday, the eve of Rosh Hashana. "The clashes began Sunday morning, with security forces seizing pipe bombs at the site in an operation carried out hours before Jews prepared to celebrate the Jewish New Year. The Shin Bet security service alerted police to the cache, apparently an effort by Palestinians to stock up on bombs, flares and rocks ahead of an organized riot." [Times of Israel, September 13, 2015] There's little doubt the pre-emptive move by the police, along with good field intelligence, prevented a worse outcome.

Pipe bombs were seized in an Israel Police raid on the Temple Mount mosque on Sunday.
This image was posted by Gilad Erdan, MK, Minister for Public Security [Image Source]

• From our Jerusalem home, we have seen considerable police helicopter activity above the Old City and Jerusalem's Arab suburbs tonight (it's now well after midnight, and signs of that activity have passed). 
• Times of Israel quotes Israel Police Acting Police Commissioner Bentzi Sau saying tonight that there is currently an open-ended upgrading of Israel’s security presence in the capital with hundreds of extra officers on duty. The goal is to restore peace, prevent additional Arab violence and carry out arrests of those responsible for the numerous attacks of the past few days.
• The same report says the police have intelligence about plans for ongoing Arab-initiated violence at and around the Temple Mount, including "stone-throwing and petrol-bomb throwing at police" like the attacks that have been happening since Sunday. 
• Those police reports quoted in the Times of Israel report mention that "dozens of Palestinian youths stayed overnight in the al-Aqsa Mosque, and prepared petrol bombs, rocks, fireworks and other means to attack police and Jewish visitors to the holy site. Security officials blamed the Muslim authorities at the site for allowing it to be abused." Via the social media, images have been circulating by both Arab and non-Arab posters, including these:

Times of Israel published this image from a video released by the Israel Police Spokesman showing Palestinian Arabs gearing up for a confrontation on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, September 13, 2015. [Image Source]

Ready for prayer or other possibilities: Inside Al Aqsa mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount this week [Image Source] 

Rocks stockpiled and walls taken down, inside Al Aqsa mosque on Monday [Image Source]

Al-Aqsa mosque aftermath [Via Alquds News yesterday]

• Three Israelis, all of them civilians, were injured in the Old City of Jerusalem during Tuesday morning, the second day of Rosh Hashana, in an attack by a Palestinian Arab. The perpetrator was arrested.
• Times of Israel: "In the Arab world, meanwhile, leaders issued a stream of denunciations of Israel’s actions at the site, with Jordan’s King Abdullah warning that bilateral ties would be affected if the violence continued."
• Reuters on Monday: "The United States is deeply concerned by the increase in violence and escalating tensions surrounding the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount," said State Department spokesman John Kirby. "We strongly condemn all acts of violence. It is absolutely critical that all sides exercise restraint, refrain from provocative actions and rhetoric and preserve unchanged the historic status quo on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount."
• Sunday night: Around midnight, a vehicle came under rock attack in the Armon Hanatziv/Talpiot East neighborhood of southern Jerusalem. The spokesperson for Israel Police said the driver of the car evidently lost control and crashed into an electricity pole. The driver, Alexander Levlovitz, a 64-year-old Jerusalem resident, later died of his injuries at Hadassah-Ein Kerem hospital. Two other passengers in his vehicle, so far un-named, were lightly injured. They were driving home from a Jewish New Year celebration. Jerusalemites are familiar with the long history of rock-hurling emanating from Jabel Mukaber, an Arab neighbourhood that abuts Talpiot East: we wrote about its violent history some months ago: see "20-May-15: Car-ramming attack again in Jerusalem"

The Israeli vehicle that came under rock-hurling attack on Sunday night [Image Source]

• Oddly, neither Reuters nor the State Department appeared to have anything to say about the killing of the Israeli driver, or the seizing of the unexploded pipe bombs.

11-May-12: If a lethal weapons cache is found and seized and no one hears about it, did it happen?

The IDF seized these lethals weapons of terrorist warfare
from a Palestinian Arab's home in Shomron In January 2012.
The photo was published just yesterday. 

Here's a small report for those interested in understanding what goes on in this country while the hunger-striking proponents of terrorism (and their supporters) are the almost sole focus of news reporting by the foreign press in Israel.

Quick and smart work by Border Police service personnel last night (Thursday) at Tapuah Junction in Shomron (the Samaria district) enabled them to identify a couple of suspicious-looking Palestinian Arab youths, apprehend them and find the terrorist weaponry they were carrying. A report from The Times of Israel says they had pipe bombs and fire bombs, and are now being interrogated.

Something's doing in the area, as we noted in the past week here [4-May-12: Fewer terror attacks? It's no accident] and here [7-May-12: Caught another would-be terrorist carrying pipe bombs]. Each of these cases has involved concealed pipe bombs, simple explosives that can produce a relatively large explosion with the fragmentation of the pipe itself dispersing lethal shrapnel.

Why the IDF fails to give publicity to terrorism of this kind is beyond us. Just yesterday, they made some small progress in the right direction by publishing a modest - and mostly invisible - article entitled "The 2012 Terror Attacks Against Israel You Never Heard About" on the IDF's own blog. The photo illustrating this post of ours comes from that article. It leaves us scratching our heads over why images like this are almost never publicized.

8-Jan-12: Terrorist outrage is blocked by quick thinking today at a security checkpoint

Border Policeman [Image Source]

There's a report coming from Jenin in the past hour that illustrates one of two possible narratives depending on how flexible you are on the subject of terrorism.

Four Palestinian Arabs were required to stop and be checked by yet another of those hideous and humiliating IDF security barriers earlier today (Sunday) where they were told to remove some of their clothing. The insult to their autonomy and manhood must have been unbearable and will very likely turn them hostile and unco-operative in their future interactions with Israelis.

That's one version. Here's another.

Some hours ago, four Palestinian Arabs were stopped at the Salem Crossing near Jenin in the northern West Bank and required to undergo a security check.

Here, according to Yaakov Katz from the Jerusalem Post is what happened next. The four were in line to walk into the Samaria Military Court. A member of the Israel Border Police (Mishmar Hagvul in Hebrew) watching them noticed there were wires protruding from under the jacket of one of the four. The soldiers promptly shut down the crossing, ordered the Palestinian to remove his clothing and found that he had three pipe bombs on his body. A further eight pipe bombs were found in his bag. So too was a pistol, several bullets and a commando knife. He and his three companions are now being interrogated.

The suspicion is they were there to carry out an attack on the Samaria Military Court. Israel National News says the four are from Balata, a village near Shechem (Nablus) in central Samaria.

A week ago, the IDF captured a number of weapons including an M-16 and an Uzi submachine gun in a residence in Kfar Salem, near Nablus, not far from Jenin. The Shin Bet reported a significant increase in the number of terrorist attacks in the West Bank during December (we reported on this last week: "1-Jan-12: Terror attack statistics climbed sharply in December").

Border Police doing what they do at a security checkpoint

For single-minded, religiously-impassioned individuals who are willing to die so long as they inflict pain on a despised enemy, there's an enormous amount of harm you can do to people's bodies with 11 pipe bombs, a pistol and a commando knife.

This time, an alert serviceman was quick enough and - with his security crossing colleagues - determined enough to prevent it.

But the thing about terrorism is you don't ever eliminate it by watchfulness. Yes, you can do your best to ensure that this attack or that plan is thwarted - put up barriers, install cameras, be vigilant etc. But so long as the jihadist process that creates this kind of hatred continues, and so long as it infects more and more young people growing to adulthood in Palestinian Arab society, the danger is constant and ends only when the terrorists themselves are completely neutralized.

How well is this understood outside Israel? Here's one way to tell. Watch to see how much interest the news media outside Israel take in this story.

As of 3:30 pm today, Israel time, no one other than Israeli channels is reporting it.