21-Jun-16: Martyrs, rocks and firebombs: Scenes from an Israeli highway

When a rock hits a fast-moving car, the damage is certainly serious
enough to be lethal: Aftermath of last night's assault on Israeli
vehicles on Route 443 [Image Source: Haaretz this morning]

There are two major highways that connect Jerusalem with the coastal plain, Ben Gurion Airport and the Tel Aviv area. One is Highway One, currently undergoing a multi-billion shekel enlargement and refurbishment. The other is Route 443.

In the early hours of this morning. according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) report quoting Israeli security officials, a gang of Palestinian Arabs hurled bottles, rocks and incendiary Molotov Cocktails at fast-moving vehicles on Route 443.

"An initial review suggests that as the mob continued, nearby forces acted in order to protect the additional passing vehicles from immediate danger and fired towards the assailants," a military statement said. "Forces confirmed hits resulting in the death of one of the attackers. At the moment I am aware of one other attacker that was wounded and treated by medical forces and later evacuated to hospital. Two additional suspects were arrested." [AFP via Times of India - today]

Though the AFP reporter says this happened "near the village of Beit Sira", the description suggests to us it happened where the highway passes just below the village of Beit Ur El Fauqua, population around 1,000 people. (An Israel National News report reaches the same conclusion this morning.) We ourselves have been hit by rocks while driving past that spot, as have many of our friends in the neighbourhood. It has a reputation as a source of lethal violence.

Palestinian Arab "security officials" told AFP the dead person is Mahmoud Badran, 20. Times of Israel ["Palestinian firebombs Israeli cars, is shot dead by IDF"] says he is a resident of Kafr Qadum, east of Qalqilya. It adds that two other Palestinian Arabs were "seriously injured", quoting the same Palestinian Arab source. 

Several vehicles driving in the early hours of Tuesday morning were damaged as a result of the Arab attack. Ynet's report says of the victims:

An Israeli and two foreigners in their twenties were lightly injured and taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center overnight Monday when rocks and Molotov Cocktails were hurled at a passing vehicle on Route 443. The terrorists also poured oil on the main road... IDF forces were called to the scene and shot at the terrorists, killing one of them and moderately-seriously wounding four others. Three were evacuated to a government hospital in Ramallah while the other was taken to Hadassah Ein Karem. Two suspects were arrested and taken in by the security forces for investigation.

Associated Press, unwisely (having regard to decades of Arab news-reporting history - this sort of partial and biased journalism didn't exactly begin yesterday) basing itself on an Arab version of events, says

"A Palestinian official says a 14-year-old Palestinian boy has been shot dead by Israeli troops. Wagie Ahmad, head of the Beit Our local council in the West Bank, says Mahmoud Badran was killed and four others were wounded early on Tuesday when their car was fired upon by a military patrol. The Ramallah hospital says another person was moderately wounded and three were lightly wounded. The Israeli military had no immediate response. Israeli media says the shooting took place after rocks were hurled at Israeli vehicles, wounding three."

Haaretz, no stranger to bizarre manipulation of facts if there's a greater need, offers this headline: "Two Tourists, One Israeli Wounded in Stone-throwing Incident Near Major Highway". The vehicles that were hit and damaged were on the major highway. So were the victims. The only part of this that was near the major highway was the gang of thugs with the firebombs, bucket of oil, rocks and evil murderous intentions. That's an odd reason to choose that way of describing where this attack happened.

The editors and reporters at the Palestinian Ma'an news service, not so surprisingly, have a substantially different version of who did what to whom.

"Israeli forces shot and killed a 15-year-old Palestinian [they offer a photo] and injured four other Palestinian teens early Tuesday morning in the village of Beit Ur al-Tahta in the central occupied West Bank, after they reportedly threw stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli settlers, lightly injuring them.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed the death of Mahmoud Raafat Badran, and added that three of the Palestinian minors sustained serious injuries after being shot by Israeli forces in the head and chest, and were evacuated to Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah City.
Initial reports said the fourth teen was taken to an unidentified Israeli hospital, but it was revealed later by Palestinian medical sources that he was detained by Israeli forces for interrogation.
Local sources in Beit Ur al-Tahta identified the three being treated in Ramallah as Dawood Isam Kharroub, his brother Muhammad, and Ahd Ikram Suleiman.
Local Palestinian sources said five teenage Palestinians were travelling in a car between Beit Ur al-Tahta and the nearby village of Beit Sira west of Ramallah when Israeli forces “showered” the vehicle with live fire, killing one and injuring four."

Amid the conflicting claims, we can safely express total confidence that the dead Palestinian Arab is either already a designated "martyr" or being upgraded to one at this very minute.

UPDATE Tuesday at 12:30 pm: Haaretz has an updated report now.

Palestinian Killed in Stone-throwing Incident Near Major Highway Was Likely a Bystander, IDF Says | 15-year-old Palestinian was killed and four were Palestinians wounded, three seriously, after two tourists and one Israeli were wounded along Israel's Route 443 | The 15-year-old Palestinian killed by Israeli military fire during a stone-throwing incident along a major highway was apparently a bystander near the site of the original incident, according to an IDF press release. According to the army, he was traveling by car with his family, according to an initial report conducted by the army that was released Tuesday morning. The investigation reported that stones and a firebomb were thrown at the highway leading from Jerusalem to Modi’in, near the village of Beit Sira, around 1 A.M. Oil was also spilled on the highway. The stones injured an Israeli citizen travelling on a bus as well as two tourists travelling by car. An officer and some soldiers from the Kfir Brigade serving in the vicinity were passing through. They noticed the injured and launched a hunt for the stone throwers. Gunfire was errantly shot at the car, in which the boy was a passenger, killing him, according to the report. Others wounded by gunfire were evacuated to a Ramallah hospital. The army still has been unable to say whether the injured include passers-by shot by accident or people connected to the stone throwing. The army said the investigation into the incident would continue in the Binyamin regional battalion serving in the Ramallah area. 

The Palestinian Authority identified the slain Palestinian as Mahmoud Rafat Mahmoud, a 15-year-old from the village of Beir Ur al-Tahta, west of Ramallah.  Abdul Karim Kassem, head of the village's local council of the Palestinian village of Beit Ore-Tahta, told Reuters that the wounded Palestinians were in a car "returning from a pool in a village near us when they came under fire." According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, four Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire, three of them seriously. Three of the wounded Palestinians were taken to a medical center in Ramallah, while the other remains hospitalized at Ein Karem. Two of the wounded are brothers, according to sources in the village. [Archived at 12:40 pm, June 21, 2016] 

UPDATE Tuesday June 21, 2016 at 1:00 pm:

From Reuters: "Israeli troops mistakenly killed a Palestinian bystander on Tuesday while responding with gunfire to a petrol bomb and rock attack on Israeli vehicles in the occupied West Bank, the military said. An earlier statement from the military had identified the Palestinian as an assailant. The mayor of his village said he was a 15-year-old. The military said several Palestinians threw petrol bombs and stones at vehicles, injuring three civilians, on a highway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem that traverses the West Bank... Troops gave chase and "after an initial inquiry, it appears that uninvolved bystanders were mistakenly hit during the pursuit," a military spokeswoman said, identifying one of them as the Palestinian killed in the incident. She said the military had opened an investigation... Abdul Karim Kassem, head of the local council of the Palestinian village of Beit Ore-Tahta, told Reuters that Mahmoud Badran, the teenager killed in the incident on Highway 443, was in a car with other passengers "returning from a pool in a village near us when they came under fire". Another Palestinian was wounded by Israeli gunfire and taken to hospital in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The military said two additional suspects were arrested.

Who is the dead 20-year old mentioned in the AFP report above? At this point, anyone's guess.

24-Dec-15: Another terror outrage narrowly averted - and Shalit Deal releasees are again at the heart of the darkness

Al-Quds University students [Image Source]

This could have turned out very, very badly - and might still.

Right here in Jerusalem, side by side with ordinary, constructive lives being lived by most of the people who call this special city home, a cluster of death-cultists - yet another in a lengthening string of them, working in dark places and preparing unspeakably dark plans involving injuries, mayhem and deaths - has been stopped.

No one imagines they are the only such cluster of plotters or that there will not be others on the way. But these, at least, have been stopped for now.

No innocent civilians were hurt - at least, not for now. So news coverage of this important development has been sparse outside our beleaguered country, particularly as seasonal celebrations have the attention of most of Europe, Australia and the Americas. From Times of Israel:

The Shin Bet, alongside the IDF and Israel Police, have thus far arrested 25 Hamas operatives, the majority of them Al-Quds University in Abu Dis students, who they suspect were preparing to attack Israeli targets, the agency said in a statement. The arrests were carried out over the past few weeks. The service also uncovered a makeshift laboratory in Abu Dis, in east Jerusalem, which was being used to create the explosives necessary for bombing attacks. It said the cell was controlled by Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip... In addition to the Abu Dis terror cell, the Shin Bet also busted a [related] Bethlehem-based group... ["Hamas cell planned suicide and car bombings, Shin Bet reveals", Times of Israel, December 23, 2015]

Some of the plotters

The article makes clear that some of the intelligence that led to the unraveling of this group's plans came from interrogations carried out by PA security officers of Hamas people arrested by them. As we keep noting in this blog, Hamas operates throughout the areas occupied by the PA, in some places more publicly, in others less. Their hand, not to mention their flags and the signs of their terror-focused activities, are everywhere.

Among those arrested in this latest intercept:

• Ahmad Jamal Mousa Azzam, 24, from Qalqilya, at some point a student at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis: Considered the terrorist ringleader, and controlled from Gaza. He was given training by his handlers in "how to create explosive belts and vests, as well as improvised explosive devices". Once in, Azzam recruited the others, mostly from among the Al-Quds student body. Some of those were intended to become human bombs.
• Hazem Ziad Amran Sandouqa, 22, a resident of the Old City of Jerusalem and an Israeli citizen - therefore able to move around with relative ease, an obvious strategic advantage to the planning and execution of terror. 
• Fahdi Daoud Muhammad Abu Qaian, 19, also an Israeli citizen, a Bedouin from the Negev, and a designated attacker in the terror plot. Under interrogation, he confessed that he was being prepared for a bombing mission by means of an explosive vest or by driving an explosives-packed vehicle into an Israeli target (we're guessing the target would have consisted of human beings).
• Issa Nasser Issa Shoka, 19, an Al-Quds University student, a designated money courier and intending human bomb, as well as one of the leaders of the Bethlehem cell.
• Muhammad Waleed Ahmad Sarhkhan, 20, of the Bethlehem cell.
• Muhammad Na’im Issa Ali, 19, also from the Bethlehem cell, another intending human bomb.

Avi Issacharoff, in a follow-on article published last night ["What if the Hamas terror cell in Abu Dis had succeeded?", Times of Israel, December 23, 2015], looks at the dire consequences had this Hamas terrorist cell not been stopped:

The Palestinian Authority is surviving. And overall, Israeli citizens have become used to a sick reality in which almost every day Palestinians try to attack them. [But although] this weapons factory and infrastructure were discovered, the fact is that every passing day moves us closer to Second Intifada-style terrorism... [Issacharoff]

Viewing yesterday's IDF real-time video (above) of soldiers breaking into the Jerusalem lab and doing an inventory of the chemicals they found there turns this into something more real and immediate. For purposes of bomb making, the jihadist/murderers had stocked up (something we have not seen reported so far in the news) on nitro-glycerine and cyanide - they're shown clearly. That's in addition to an evil scientist's trove of lethal substances and explosives intended for killing and seriously harming people. Experience tells us those people would have been innocent Israelis, almost certainly civilians. That's how terror works.

Had, Heaven forbid, the Abu Dis/Bethlehem terror collective pulled off a "showcase" outrage

The Israeli government would have come under immense pressure to take steps against the PA, and the call for a closure of the major West Bank cities would have come from every direction. The pressure would likely have led to a ban on all Palestinian workers entering Israel, and possibly even to a widespread IDF operation in one or more West Bank cities... Tens of thousands more unemployed Palestinians would be on the streets, with hundreds of thousands affected by their loss of income. More violent confrontations with young Palestinians would likely ensue. The fraying of cooperation between the PA security forces and the IDF would be inevitable, maybe even a complete severance of such cooperation. And at the end of that slippery slope, the collapse of the PA itself... [T]hat’s precisely why Hamas has been trying so hard to set up an infrastructure capable of carrying out suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, including inside sovereign Israel... Hamas is avoiding a direct confrontation with Israel in Gaza but is doing a lot to heat things up in the West Bank. Senior Hamas operatives in Gaza know they have a certain amount of immunity from Israel, because Israel does not want another major conflict there. The people who are today orchestrating the effort to carry out attacks are mostly Hamas members who were freed in the 2011 Shalit exchange — West Bankers who were exiled to Gaza under the deal. Somebody in Israel evidently believed, or wanted to believe, that confining them to Gaza would reduce the danger they presented. Except that even from Gaza, these people have now become a central headache for Israel in the West Bank... [Issacharoff]

We blogged last month ["27-Nov-14: Hamas terrorist ring is busted; Israel says the handlers operate from Turkey; Qatar is involved"] about the meaningfully-malevolent role of Shalit Deal releasees. And we offered more background here: "11-Dec-15: The price of the Shalit Deal and the countries that help it keep rising".

The price paid by Israeli society - and in a meaningful sense also by the Palestinian Arabs - for this catastrophic transaction keeps growing. Yet there remains, it has to be said and with some pain, a striking unwillingness among the insiders of our government to properly analyze what was done, reach operative conclusions and express sincere regret. It's surely called for.

10-Nov-15: Qalqilya - yet another knifing attack

Our backgrounder on the events of early this morning in Qalqilya had just gone up when we heard of yet another stabbing attack on Israelis, this one in... Qalqilya (even the name makes it sound violent):

A fresh stabbing attempt is being reported near the West Bank town of Qalqilya, near central Israel. The alleged attacker has been arrested, according to a report by Channel 10 news. No Israelis were injured in the incident, according to the report. The attempted attack occurred during clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli forces, Channel 10 says. The attempt would be the fourth of the day by Palestinian assailants... [Times of Israel]

More coming.

10-Nov-15: Qalqilya where the strings are pulled by Hamas and Qatar

Marching for Hamas in the center of Qalqilya, May 13, 2011
[Image Source]

Hamas controls the Gaza Strip. But it's often not fully appreciated how much Hamas' Islamist tentacles now reach well inside the second of the Palestinian Arab entities, the one supposedly controlled by Fatah and the Mahmoud Abbas clique.

In the 2006 Palestinian Arab municipal elections, Qalqilya, a city of more than 40,000 located right on the edge of the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, elected a Hamas candidate as mayor. He was subsequently replaced in the course of intra-Arab intrigues and Fatah has been in charge since then. But in some significant respects, Hamas is still the local force to be reckoned with.

In the early hours of this morning (Tuesday), Israeli security forces - a blend of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), the IDF, and personnel of the Israel Police - converged on Qalqilya. From reports, the impression is of a massive operation including the elite Duvdevan unit undercover soldiers Egoz commando unit of the Golan Brigade, undercover Border Police officers from the Judea and Samaria district, and soldiers of the IDF's Kfir infantry brigade's Duchifat battalion, and the Artillery Corps' Reshef and Namer battalions.

No secret about the Hamas presence in Qalqilya [Image Source: 2011 march]

The Jerusalem Post's report says the raiders

targeted, among others, the alleged local Hamas commander, who worked to renew Hamas activity in the Kalkilya region and in surrounding villages. The activities allegedly included "preparing the ground for terrorist activities," the Shin Bet said. The Hamas operatives were orchestrated and received instructions, as well as a high degree of funding, from Hamas headquarters in Qatar and in the Gaza Strip, "which assisted in building up the infrastructure," the Shin Bet added. Security forces raided addresses and arrested 24 Hamas operatives, some of whom served repeated past jail terms for past Hamas military activities, the intelligence agency said. Security forces also seized more than NIS 35,000 during the raids... "The Hamas infrastructure in Kalkilya is one of Hamas's oldest in the West Bank," the Shin Bet said. "This episode uncovers the ongoing activities of Hamas headquarters abroad and in the Gaza Strip, as well as the activities of local West Bank infrastructures, to realize their goal of building up their forces, with a view of reaching organizational and military readiness... Their end goal is to carry out terrorist attacks and engage in military activity against Israeli targets..." [Jerusalem Post, November 10, 2015]

A total of 36 terrorism suspects, including the 24 Hamas people from Qalqilya, were taken into custody overnight. along with firearms and ammunition. Other Israeli raids this morning led to arrests of Palestinian Arabs in Shechem/Nablus (2 arrests), Bethlehem (3), Hebron (5), Jericho.(1) [source: Ma'an News Agency]

Is there any realistic Israeli expectation that Hamas has been uprooted from those places? No. Hamas is clearly present and embedded throughout Judea and Samaria - the mis-named West Bank (west of what? Jordan), and growing in influence.

But note also the malign influence of Qatar where the First Lady of the United States spent several days last week, departing on Friday after canceling ("because of bad weather") a second Middle East stop in Jordan. The cancellation left her "extremely disappointed", according to a Gulf Times report.

Head of Hamas, Meshaal lives far from the rigours and dangers of Gaza
in Qatar. Why? Ah, that would require a long explanation about the central
role of money in his brand of terror [Image Source]

Khaled Mashaal, the most inside of the Hamas terrorism insiders and a man with a personal fortune measured in the billions of dollars, has lived luxuriously in Qatar since 2012.

Qatar is, in many ways, the ideal perch from which to safely oversee the spread of Hamas' influence and tentacles inside the arch-rival PA's roiling fiefdom.

Which leaves us to observe that Qatar has to be an odd place for Michelle Obama to spend time. Astoundingly rich because of the gas located deep below its arid sandy landscape, Qatar (to quote Wikipedia)

buys influence in Western countries through investments and donations...  [investing its money] extensively in London real estate, and the regime has also made donations to prominent research centers in the United States. At the same time, Qatar maintains ties to Western adversaries, including Iran, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and extremist elements in Syria...

That kind of balancing act probably explains why Qatar is so careful with what it reveals to its friends and citizens. To illustrate, if you look now at the current edition of the local newspaper, the Gulf Times (online here), you will see it carries a detailed report of the Israeli raid on Qalqilya, based on a syndicated AFP article (here). The AFP version mentions the connection to string-pullers in Qatar. The Qatar version (here) does not.

If you're wondering - yes, other publications that subscribe to AFP's syndication service, like Al-Arabiya (based in Dubai), The Malaysian Insider, and Daily Mail UK among others - also published the AFP report but did include the reference to Qatar.

09-Nov-15: Death of a knife attacker and the lethally selective way it's reported

The photo above, unrelated to the events at the Eliyahu security checkpoint, 
is what the editors at AFP chose to illustrate the report of today's 
knife attack by an unsuccessful Arab stabber [Source]

Here's the opening line of a major news report appearing at this moment on an English-language Palestinian Arab news site:

A Palestinian woman was shot-dead by Israeli soldiers this morning under the pretext that she tried to stab a border guard, at the Eliyahu military checkpoint in Qalqilya, northern West Bank. ["22-year-old woman shot-dead by soldiers at Eliyahu checkpoint, Qalqilya", Palestine News Network, November 8, 2015]. 

Under the pretext, they say. Pretext.

The French news agency AFP reports the same event today a little differently - and please take note of the photo above which accompanies their article:

A Palestinian woman attempted to attack Israeli security guards with a knife at a checkpoint in the north of the occupied West Bank on Monday before being shot dead, officials said. Two letters found in her bag indicated plans for a suicide attack, according to the ministry. Palestinian police identified her as Rasha Uweisseh, 23 and from Qalqilya... ["Palestinian woman attempts stabbing, shot dead: officials", AFP, November 8, 2015]

The rasha's suicide note [Source:
Jerusalem Post today]

That matter of letters in her bag indicating what AFP calls a "suicide attack" seems significant to us. The Jerusalem Post says the woman called Rasha set out to kill people in order "to defend the homeland and the youth". (Non-Hebrew speakers might be interested to know that the stabber's first name, "Rasha", is the Hebrew word for "evil person".)

Her letters are all over the Arabic-language social media today (Twitter tweets here, for example).

Knowing about the letters, more accurate terms to describe the events at the crossing this morning might be lethal attack, murderous attack, knifing attack, stabbing attack, or even just attack. Because one thing is perfectly clear in this case as in so many others: Miss Uweisseh of Qalqilya came to the checkpoint in order to kill someone. That she was indifferent to what might happen to her is probably true but not the point. This attack was about killing Jews, Israelis. The connection to suicide is incidental, secondary and misleading.

So on what basis does PNN claim the killing of the young woman was done on a "pretext"? Probably on the same basis that brings certain other parts of the media to frame the attempted murder of Israelis via a focus on the attacker's failure and death.

• "Israeli occupation forces on Monday shot dead a Palestinian woman at a checkpoint in the north of the occupied West Bank." [Opening line of news report by Lebanon's Al-Manar]
• "Palestinian woman allegedly attempts stabbing, shot dead" [Al Arabiya's headline]
• "Shot at a checkpoint in the West Bank" [Headline of a report on the attack in the Icelandic news channel Morgunbladid]
• "Palestinian girl shot by Israelis" [Headline of a Persian-language report on the PressTV, Iran, website]
• "Palestinian woman killed after alleged attack at Qalqiliya checkpoint http://bit.ly/1SbsgJj  #palestine" [Tweeted by the Pal Arab Ma'an News Agency, here]
• And entirely predictably, the propagandists of Hamas via their Twitter account say: "#IOF forces execute Palestinian lady Rasha Al Ewasi, 23, at a military checkpoint east of #Qalqilya city. #WestBank"
• BBC Arabic's report [here] of the attacker's death is mysteriously silent about the letters she left behind. No mention of them at all. 

To the surprise of no informed observer, the dead woman has already been proclaimed a "martyr" by the Palestinian Arab media machine [here] whose accounts of how she was "shot dead in cold blood" will ensure a steady flow of more such attacks and deaths. Mission accomplished.

The selective reporting of the manner of her death and what brought her to carry out the attack are critical components of the incitement and brain-washing that make this possible. It's part of a process that deserves to be called what it is: lethal journalism.

21-Feb-12: Shalit-for-murderers-and-other-terrorists: Part 2

Wish we could say more about what this really means, but for now there is a notable lack of available detail (and we would welcome any insights offered by informed readers of this blog). From a Ynet report published on line in the last ten minutes:

Report: IDF arrests 2 Palestinian released as part of Shalit deal
Published: 02.21.12, 11:43 / Israel News
Palestinian sources said that two Palestinian released as part of Shalit deal were arrested by IDF troops operating in West Bank city of Qalqilya overnight. Five Palestinians released as part of the prisoner exchange deal were re-arrested in the past few weeks, the Palestinians said. 

1,027 terrorists were freed from Israeli prisons in October and December 2011 as ransom payment by Israel for the return, safe and sound, by the Hamas terrorists of the hostage Gilad Shalit.