10-Jan-16: Yet another terror cell uncovered and captured in Hebron

Details were released today of the discovery and capture of a Hebron-area terror squad that sought to carry out one or more Arab-on-Israeli shooting attacks. For that purpose, its members had equipped themselves with lethal equipment including at least one M-16 rifle.

(The last such discovery and capture was just a few days ago, also in Hebron.)

A joint Shin Bet-IDF operation brought the cell's activities to an end in November and its members are in custody. The four names publicized today are Mehmed Ali Qawasmeh, 38; Amr Mehmed Ewiwie, 29; Louai Faisal Hashelmon, 32; Husam Fakhri Hashelmon, 24. All are charged with being part of the terror cell and were indicted for conspiracy to commit voluntary manslaughter and for being members of Hamas, an illegal organization.

The authorities are not saying whether there are others not yet named, though that is the subject of speculation in the media today.

Times of Israel adds that Mehmed Ali Qawasmeh, the leader of this latest-to-be-discovered terror cell and the one who recruited the others, is

the brother of one of the terrorists responsible for the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in summer 2014, the Shin Bet says.

As we noted in a recent post ["11-Dec-15: The price of the Shalit Deal and the countries that help it keep rising"]

Wasim Qawasmeh, a resident of Hebron and one of numerous Qawasmehs to be mentioned in this blog over the years for their passion for murdering Jews, was recruited by Hamas in Malaysia... 

And so have numerous other Qawasmehs.

11-Dec-15: The price of the Shalit Deal and the countries that help it keep rising

Mutual admiration society: Hamas' Haniye, Turkey's Erdogan
[Image Source]

It was always clear that the release of 1,027 convicted and imprisoned Arab terrorists from Israeli jails in the ill-conceived Shalit Deal would lead to, and has in fact caused, the deaths of numerous innocent Israeli victims.

What is less clear even now is the enabling role provided by certain countries in empowering a cohort of Shalit Deal graduates to emerge as key figures in a campaign of anti-Israel terrorism by remote control. The note below focuses on just four: Turkey, Qatar, Jordan and Malaysia.

A small flurry of media attention in the past day indicates that the worst of the deadly consequences of the 2011 Shalit Deal are still ahead:

Palestinian prisoners released and deported to Gaza, Turkey, and Qatar as part of the Shalit deal are organizing their own terrorist cells in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, according to a report on Thursday. The deported prisoners, who are members of Hamas’ military wing, are providing guidance and funds to these cells, Hamas sources told Ynet...  The operation is being run by senior Hamas official Saleh al-Arouri, who is based in Turkey... The exiled Hamas members also have created their own cells in the West Bank to incite, protest and clash with Israeli security forces... The sources said, according to the report, that the Hamas leadership in Gaza is pushing for suicide bomb attacks to be carried out in the West Bank and east Jerusalem...  Israeli officials are convinced that Hamas will make every effort to execute a large-scale attack by using whatever means are available to its men in the field. Mahmoud al-Zahar, a senior figure in Hamas' political bureau, told an Islamist-affiliated web site in Gaza in October that he was hopeful the current violence would escalate into "an armed intifada." ["Freed Hamas prisoners from Schalit deal forming independent terror cells, says report", Jerusalem Post, December 10, 2015]

Al-Zahar, Hamas foreign minister [Image Source: Reuters]

(We would add that Mahmoud al-Zahar, mentioned above, is more than just a senior Hamas figure. He's usually identified as Hamas' foreign minister in the media. Not being part of Hamas' armed "wing" doesn't prevent him from saying he is hopeful the violence now happening here daily will evolve into "an armed intifada".)

Quoted in the little-noticed Jerusalem Post article, the Ynet report written by Elior Levy, describes a shadow organization, largely independent of both Fatah and Hamas and with an intense focus on doing terror. Members of its leadership, taking advantage of the unjustified freedom handed to them via the government of Israel and the extortion made possible by the Shalit transaction

are using the connections they made in the villages and cities of the West Bank and East Jerusalem before they were arrested. They each operate separately, working with a contact in the territories, each in a different area. The expelled prisoners provide their contacts in the territories with funding and guidance, while the contacts form the cells. The fact the communication between the expelled prisoners and their contact in the West Bank is done directly makes these military cells decentralized and compartmentalized. These operations are led and financed by the head of the Hamas military wing's West Bank Division, Saleh al-Arouri, who is located in Turkey... According to the Hamas source, an escalation of the situation in the West Bank will provide the terror organization with a way out of the crisis it faces in the Gaza Strip. [Ynet, December 10, 2015] 

This emerging branch of Palestinian Arab terror has been evident for some time. The existence of an amorphous terror structure operating from Judea and Samaria and led by released Palestinian Arab prisoners was documented this past summer in a monograph [here] published by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, directed by Dr. Reuven Erlich (it's often called ITIC). The report focuses on three men, all sentenced by Israeli courts to long prison terms for terror, all freed and all currently engaged in plotting fresh murders from the safety of other countries. Two were released in the Shalit Deal; the third was released from prison in 2010 and took an active, perhaps key, role in the Shalit negotiations.

• Turkey-based Saleh Mohammed Suleiman Al-Arouri is a founder of Hamas' so-called military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. He spent 18 years behind Israeli bars until being freed in the year before the Shalit Deal. He was then deported to Jordan, moving on from there to Syria from where he had a hand in the Shalit negotiations. When Hamas abandoned Damascus, he moved on to Turkey. He's based there now as the person in charge of Hamas terrorist operations in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. He's also a member of the Hamas political bureau. He claimed credit in a public speech last year [here] for the June 2014 kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teens. (Hamas' strategy of having ostensibly separate political and military "wings" aims to shield its terror-spouting leaders from from responsibility for Hamas terrorism - a shabby form of plausible deniability that confers fig-leaf protection for reporters and politicians seeking a cost-free engagement with the blood-lusting Islamist terrorists.) 
• Hussam Atef Badran, released in the Shalit Deal, living and operating freely in Qatar from where he often appears in global news media as Hamas spokesman. An Islamist terror insider, he has responsibilities in the fields of terrorist network management and recruitment in Judea and Samaria. ITIC says he also spends terror-related time in Turkey.
• Ahmed al-Najjar, convicted for the terror-related shooting murders of six Israelis, was also released in the 2011 Shalit Deal. He holds US citizenship, according to ITIC quoting an Arabic-language report from March 19, 2011 on the amin.org site, shortly before being let loose. Deported to the Gaza Strip, he moved on to Jordan from where he oversees terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria. The murder of Malachi Rosenfeld in July 2015 ["19-Aug-15: The road to Malachi's death and the decisions that made it possible"] is one of them. 

Hussam Badran, Hamas's Qatar-based spokesman, appearing on
Turkey's TRT television, June 2014 [Image Source]

Many of our readers live in countries that have ongoing diplomatic and friendly ties with the states that host these terrorists and their operations. ITIC describes how those states play an invaluable role in anti-Israel terror:

Communication between the handlers and the operatives in Judea and Samaria is mainly by phone or via the Internet. Money transfers are performed by utilizing people who hold an entry permit into Israel (for example, for medical treatment) and the Palestinian Authority. In some cases, meetings are held outside Judea and Samaria by means of a courier who goes abroad. In the ITIC’s assessment, Turkey and Jordan are the two countries of choice for these meetings. This is due to their geographical proximity to Judea and Samaria and the relative ease with which one can create a suitable cover story in order to travel to them. [ITIC Report, August 4, 2015 - page 7]

Turkey also provides a congenial setting for field training of freshly-recruited terrorists

Saleh al-Arouri and additional operatives at the military headquarters in Turkey are also engaged in training operatives recruited by Hamas. Some of the terrorist operatives exposed in Judea and Samaria in August and September 2014 had received training in Turkey on planning military operations and methods for carrying out attacks against targets in Israeli territory, in Judea and Samaria, and abroad. After completing their military training, the recruits were given various tasks and assigned to squads by senior Hamas officials in Turkey... [ITIC Report, August 4, 2015 - page 11]

We noted in a blog post a year ago ["27-Nov-14: Hamas terrorist ring is busted; Israel says the handlers operate from Turkey; Qatar is involved"] that several bloody attacks - along with even more that were thwarted thanks to good Israeli intelligence - would probably have been labeled "lone wolf" terrorism if not for the now-exposed role, mostly ignored outside Israel, of these terror manipulators working unhindered from Jordan, Qatar and Turkey.

And before anyone makes holiday plans for Turkey in particular, here's a reminder of some thoughts we shared here some months ago? ["25-Feb-15: Talking Turkey on terror"]

ITIC has collected evidence that Malaysia provides the Hamas terrorists with covert support (though Malaysian sources deny this), partly based on things the Shin Bet has said. Wasim Qawasmeh, a resident of Hebron and one of numerous Qawasmehs to be mentioned in this blog over the years for their passion for murdering Jews, was recruited by Hamas in Malaysia [details here], as were numerous other Palestinian Arabs studying there. Other reports have mentioned Palestinian Arabs having undergone hang glider training in Malaysia, intended to be applied to terrorist attacks against Israelis.

When we wrote about Malaysia here some months back ["28-Apr-15: In Malaysia, years of anti-semitic exhortations along the path to anti-Israel terror"] we referred to the nauseating incitement that has emanated at intervals from the country's prominent, though it has to be said somewhat bizarre, former leader Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad. He was his country's prime minister for 22 years between 1981 and 2002:

"I am glad to be labelled anti-Semitic... How can I be otherwise, when the Jews who so often talk of the horrors they suffered during the Holocaust show the same Nazi cruelty and hard-heartedness towards not just their enemies but even towards their allies should any try to stop the senseless killing of their Palestinian enemies..."

And this from Mahathir's speech to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit in 2003, published in The Malaysian Insider:

"[T]he Nazis killed six million Jews out of 12 million (during the Holocaust). But today, the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them"... adding this time that any sympathy accorded to the victims of the Holocaust was "wasted and misplaced".

Worth noting that Malaysia currently occupies one of the non-permanent-member seats on the
United Nations Security Council.

We plan to come back to the roles of Jordan and Qatar shortly.

17-Oct-15: Bloody Saturday

Israel Police released this photo of Corporal M [Source]

The peace of the Jerusalem Sabbath - a glorious day of sunshine, warm breezes, calm in the air - has ended with sundown.

Now the realities of the world are back on the screen in front of us, and it's time to again address the ongoing war of terror being waged by the Palestinian Arabs and their backers.

Despite our prayers and hopes, it has again been a day filled with lethal violence - and Palestinian Arab children are at the heart of the barbarism.

• A female serving with the Border Police, identified only as Corporal M in a Ynet report, came under attack this morning by a knife-wielding Palestinian Arab female. The assault took place at the entrance to the Border Police base in Kiryat Arba where M was doing guard duty. The terrorist approached her and stabbed her. Despite suffering a wound to the hand, M shot the assailant dead. "The terrorist came to the guarding post and asked me to direct her to a certain street in the area. I told her I did not recognize the name and that she should ask the locals how to get there. All of a sudden she drew out a knife and tried to stab me in the neck. I took a step back and shot the terrorist without hesitating"... [Corporal M via Ynet] The attacker was later identified as Biyan Assila, age 16, of Hebron.
• About half an hour after the Kiryat Arba attack, another took place in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighbourhood. (The same area was in the news on Tuesday when two civilians were murdered there by a pair of Palestinian Arabs.) A Palestinian Arab teenage boy – who Times of Israel says had been stopped for routine questioning amid the current heightened tensions – pulled out a knife (a huge one - see picture) and attempted to stab the officers. They responded quickly and all escaped injury. The boy, later identified in the Palestinian Arab media as Muataz Awisat, 16, from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber, died of his injuries.
• A little later in the day, yet another knife-equipped attacker, now identified as Fadel Muhammad Qawasmeh, 18, of Hebron, approached an Israeli civilian male returning from Sabbath morning prayers in the Tomb of the Patriarchs, pulled out a knife and lunged at him attempting to stab him. Israel National News says the Jewish man "managed to avoid injury, opening fire and killing the terrorist with his pistol." The attacker died of his injuries. Note that his surname sounds an extremely unpleasant tone among Israelis with a memory: Qawasmehs were at the heart of the searing murder of three Israeli teenage boys last year - see "30-Sep-14: Martyrs and monsters" (if this has been reported in the news, we are unaware of it).
• Also in Kiryat Arba today, an IDF soldier suffered moderate injuries to his upper body after a knifing attack at a security checkpoint. Other security personnel at the scene shot the attacker, leaving him seriously injured. Medics from Magen David Adom (MDA) gave initial emergency treatment to the soldier who was then rushed to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem for further treatment.
• Another stabbing attack was reported just a short time ago tonight (8:00 pm Israel time) in Kiryat Arba. Details to follow.
• At about 8:30 pm Saturday night, another knifing attack is reported at the north Jerusalem Qalandiya security checkpoint on a Border Guard officer. It’s reported that his security vest saved him serious injury. He managed to get off a shot, and the attacker is dead.

And on it goes.

We think it's terribly important that people notice how many of the attackers are children. Their weaponization by Palestinian Arab society - is a reality that some would prefer not to confront - including some of the darker corners of the news media:

Source: Aljazeera today: Finding new ways to bring the word "allegedly" into
the conflict

28-Apr-15: In Malaysia, years of antisemitic exhortations along the path to anti-Israel terror

"Glad to be labeled anti-semitic": Malaysia's longest-serving 

political leader Mahathir Mohamad demonstrating characteristic

chumminess in Kuala Lumpur two years ago with Hamas 

arch-terrorist Khaled Meshaal [Image Source]

Israel's Shin Bet internal security service is said - according to an expose published today on the Haaretz English-language news site - to have publicly revealed detailed evidence of terrorism-centred activities by the loathsome Hamas jihadists in far-off Malaysia. [Source: "Shin Bet: Hamas training Palestinian students in Malaysia" | Haaretz | April 28, 2015]

Among the allegations:

• Hamas is taking Palestinian Arabs to Malaysia for training as 'operatives' (meaning terrorists). On their return, these people are to carry out undercover operations in the West Bank.
• A Palestinian Arab from Hebron, Waseem Qawasmeh, 24, is on trial in an IDF military court, charged with membership of a banned organization, with having contact with the enemy and receiving money from the enemy. He was arrested on February 13 at the Allenby Bridge which crosses the Jordan River, providing a road connection between the Hashemite Kingdom and the areas controlled by the Mahmoud Abbas-controlled PA. He had just returned from Malaysia, as well as having spent part of his training period in Hamas-friendly Turkey. The indictment papers were filed with the court on March 18, according to the Haaretz article and form the basis of its expose.
• Senior Hamas officials including Ma'an Hatib and Radwan al-Atrash, live in Malaysia and took part in the events giving rise to the indictment. The Shin Bet says Hatib is "responsible in Malaysia for the Hamas foreign desk", while the well-named Atrash is "a senior figure" in its Shura Council, a religion-connected body that includes Islamist figures tied to Hamas.
• Part of the terrorism prep training involves pushing the Pal Arab jihadism cadets into joining the Malaysian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and getting involved with pro-Palestinian charities active in that country.
• Among their missions, these recruits then serve as courier/messengers between the PA-controlled areas and third countries, as well as being involved with clandestine transfers of funds to serve the Hamas terror organization's requirements.

Malaysia has no diplomatic relations with Israel. Support for Hamas and its overt embrace of terror has been part of its political figures' public declarations for years. The current prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak, visited the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip in January 2013.

Malaysia's Jewish population, always a tiny number, has shrunk further in the wake of years of vile, fully-open Jew-hatred spouted from the country's highest political echelons. A 2012 article in Canada's National Post ["Anti-Semitism without Jews in Malaysia"] notes that Malaysia's

politicians and civil servants devote a surprising amount of time to thinking about Israel, 7,612 km away. Sometimes they appear to be obsessed by it. Malaysia has never had a dispute with Israel, but the government encourages the citizens to hate Israel and also to hate Jews whether they are Israelis or not. Few Malaysians have laid eyes on a Jew; the tiny Jewish community emigrated decades ago. Nevertheless, Malaysia has become an example of a phenomenon called “Anti-Semitism without Jews.” Last March, for instance, the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department sent out an official sermon to be read in all mosques, stating that “Muslims must understand Jews are the main enemy to Muslims as proven by their egotistical behaviour and murders performed by them.” About 60% of Malaysians are Muslim. In Kuala Lumpur, it’s routine to blame the Jews for everything from economic failures to the bad press Malaysia gets in foreign (“Jewish-owned”) newspapers...

If that's an exaggeration, it's not much of one.

A Malaysian newspaper, showcasing the career of the most prominent of Malaysia's leaders, former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad who served as the country's prime minister for 22 years between 1981 and 2002. provides some illustrative quotes:

"I am glad to be labelled antisemitic... How can I be otherwise, when the Jews who so often talk of the horrors they suffered during the Holocaust show the same Nazi cruelty and hard-heartedness towards not just their enemies but even towards their allies should any try to stop the senseless killing of their Palestinian enemies..."

That article, published in The Malaysian Insider, refers to Mahathir's speech to the Organisation of the Islamic Conference summit in 2003:

"[T]he Nazis killed six million Jews out of 12 million (during the Holocaust). But today, the Jews rule the world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them"... adding this time that any sympathy accorded to the victims of the Holocaust was "wasted and misplaced".

Keep in mind Malaysia currently sits on the UN Security Council, where one of its most senior diplomats sees it having a role he bizarrely calls "constructive" in resolving a certain generations-long confrontation. See "Malaysia wants role in finding UN solution to Palestine-Israel conflict", a Malaysian news report from less than a week ago.

This might be a very good moment to review some of the thousands of Google links that pop up when you search on the term "Moderate Malaysia". Here's a fine example from 2009 among many others: "The Myth Of A Moderate Malaysia", from Forbes Magazine, in which the author addresses himself to

those scanning the globe for a Muslim-majority country that inspires neither dread nor despair [and] often alight upon Malaysia.

He explains why this optimism could be a teeny bit misplaced.

We are currently scanning the on-line Malaysian media to see how those years of foaming-at-the-mouth racist Mahathir-isms, are impacting on this latest round of made-in-Malaysia terrorism-friendly developments. Stay tuned.

30-Sep-14: Martyrs and monsters

The street scene outside the burnt-out hide-away in Hebron after the elimination
of the fugitives in a firefight [Image Source]

The kidnapping and cold-blooded murder of three unarmed teen-age Israeli boys in June 2014 horrified and to a great extent united the Israeli public. The names and fates of Eyal Yifrach, 19, Gilad Shaar, 16, and Naftali Frenkel, 16, implanted in the Israeli collective consciousness since the events of three months ago, make concrete the terrorist passions animating the Islamist savages just across Israel's border with the Gaza Strip and the murder-addicted Hamas regime dug in there.

Rarely have Israelis had a clearer sense of what we stand for, what they stand for, and the unbridgeable gulf that separates us from them.

An audio record of the frantic call to an emergency number by one of the ways is part of that collective experience. In it, we hear a whispered call for help, followed by shouting and shots. Right after that, Marwan Al-Qawasmi and Amer Abu Aisheh, the killers, are heard laughing and rejoicing.

Others involved in the plot were arrested fairly quickly. But the two principal terrorists evaded capture from the time of the kidnap and murder until their demise on Tuesday September 23, 2014. The two fugitives were located shortly before that, and the Hebron residence in which they were hiding was surrounded by Israeli security forces. What happened next, according to Reuters:

Marwan Kawasme and Amar Abu Aysha, both in their 30s, were shot dead during a gun battle after Israeli troops surrounded a house in the city before dawn, the army and residents said. Israel had been hunting the men for three months... The military said army and police forces were trying to arrest the two suspects when a firefight erupted. "We opened fire, they returned fire and they were killed in the exchange," Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Lerner said. The governor of Hebron, Kamel Hmeid, confirmed on Palestinian radio that the two were dead. "It's clear now the two martyrs, al-Kawasme and Abu Aysha, were assassinated this morning during a military operation in the Hebron University area. We condemn this crime, this assassination, as deliberate and premeditated murder," he said. [Reuters, September 23, 2014]

Hmeid, the senior local political figure on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, understood that what had happened was a crime, an act of premeditated murder. The three unarmed, innocent boys who fell prey to the terrorists were not on his mind, however. He expressed no regret at the acts of murder that ended their young lives. "Assassination" is the word he chose for the deaths resulting from a gunfight between heavily-armed soldiers and two heavily-armed and desperate fugitives. The fugitive gunmen were the innocents in his narrative.

The Palestinian Arab politician was hardly alone in his moral perversion.

Palestinian Media Watch, which does invaluable work monitoring Arabic voices that fail to cross the language barrier and thus remain unknown to western public opinion, issued a report today surveying how the killers of three unarmed Jewish schoolboys - and their actions - have become sanctified by Palestinian Arab public and political opinion.

Some instances cited by PMW today:

• Hamas, the ruling power in Gaza and the Palestinian Arab arm of the Moslem Brotherhood, claimed credit for the actions of the two gunmen/kidnappers on August 22, 2014. See interview with Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal quoted by PMW.
• Another senior Hamas figure, Saleh al-Arouri, among the founders of its Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades arm, addressed a conference in Istanbul (where he now lives) of the International Union of Islamic Scholars on August 20, 2014. In comments recorded on tape and later posted online by conference organisers. he said: "There was much speculation about this operation; some said it was a conspiracy... The popular will was exercised throughout our occupied land, and culminated in the heroic operation by [Hamas's armed wing] the Qassam Brigades in imprisoning the three settlers in Hebron." [Source: The Guardian on August 22, 2014]
• Nonetheless WAFA, the public voice of the Palestinian Authority, refers in a september 23, 2014 report to the hunt for the killers and their deaths in the shoot-out as an "execution", and the freshly-dead terrorists as "Martyrs" (shahids). PMW notes that "WAFA did not mention why Israel sought to arrest them".
• The PA's minister for religious affairs is also quoted by PMW calling the dead killers "martyrs" whom Israeli forces "assassinated", an act it called "a crime".
•  On official PA TV news, the PMW translation of the headline report on September 23, 2014 is: "Occupation forces executed the two citizens Marwan Al-Qawasmi and Amer Abu Aisheh in cold-blood..."
• Over at Fatah, whose head is the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, its spokesperson Ahmad Assaf "condemned the cowardly execution of Palestinian citizens" which he termed "a serious violation of international law."
• The Palestinian delegation to the ceasefire talks in Cairo called it a "heinous crime" and an "assassination... intended to conceal the truth behind the [occupation's] version of events since the disappearance of the three settlers in Hebron." [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, September 24, 2014]

Two funerals [Image Source]

A different form of morality-free viewpoint appears in an Al-Akhbar (Egypt) op ed column:

"What distinguished the abduction operation is that it left a deep impact on the Israeli psyche and constituted a resounding message to all parties, namely, that the Palestinian people will spare no effort to liberate their prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons..." [Ali Haydar, Al Akhbar, September 24, 2014]

Thousands attended the funerals of the two men:

In Qatar, Hussam Badran, a spokesman for top Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal, praised the two militants on his Twitter account. "The martyrdom of Marwan Qawasmeh and Amer Abu Aisheh came after a long life full of jihad sacrifice and giving. This is the path of resistance, which we all are moving in," he said. [Associated Press, September 25, 2014]

Heroes they will inevitably be, and thousands may be moving on their path as Mashaal says. But unlike others elevated by Palestinian Arab society to that status, they are not going to take part in any future extortion-driven release deals. They will not study for a university degree at the expense of Israeli taxpayers like us. They won't be walking free again as media cameramen snap and flash around them. 

Above all, their arms are never going to be raised high by two-faced politicians playing to impassioned crowds braying for more killings, more revenge, more martyrs.

24-Oct-13: Dead terrorists and their achievements

Israel's High Court handed down the decision to free
terrorists' bodies to the terrorism-friendly PA

The English language version of the Yediot report that we quoted a few minutes ago has gone up on the Ynet site. It says that Israel is set to deliver the bodies of 36 terrorists to the Palestinian Authority. 

This comes in the wake of a petition filed by terrorist families with Israel's High Court of Justice. Palestinian sources say the terrorists' families were asked to provide DNA samples to complete the process of identification and have been told to show up at military checkpoints on November 5 and November 7 to effect the collection.

The terrorists whose bodies are going to be handed over are said (by Ynet) to include:

• Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, exploded in central Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant on August 9, 2001, exacting 15 lives, leaving a young woman in a comatose state that continues until today, and injuring 130 others. He is one of several people who murdered our daughter, Malki, 15. All but one are now free.
• Brothers, Imad and Adel Awadallah, considered at the time they were killed in a shoot-out with IDF soldiers near Hebron on September 12, 1998, to be "the two most wanted terrorists of Hamas" 
• Ayat al-Akhras, female bomber aged 18 and a resident of the Bethlehem area; exploded at the entrance to the Kiryat Hayovel supermarket in suburban Jerusalem on March 29, 2002. Her victims included the security guard posted at the door, Haim Smadar, 55, who "spoke Arabic [and] became suspicious after two Arabic women who usually sold vegetables outside the shop entrance had been told by Akhras to leave", as well as Rachel Levy, a 17 year-old girl from the nieghbourhood. Thirty others were injured.
• Sami Fathi Mustafa Basharat, a terrorist killed (according to Ynet) in a firefight with IDF soldiers in 2003. A human rights organization catalogues him as "22 year-old resident of Tammun, Tubas district, killed on 13.03.2003 in Tammun, Tubas district. Killed when participating in hostilities. Additional information: Killed during an exchange of gunfire." This United Nations General Assembly document lists him as one of the "martyrs killed by the Israeli occupying forces in the Occupied Palestinian Territory".
• Ahmed Faqih, 20, and Mohammed Shaheen, 20, Islamic Jihad terrorist gunmen from the village of Dura. They carried out a shooting attack on the yeshiva at Otniel on December 27, 2002, in which four students were murdered, and many others injured.
• Mahmoud Umdan Salim Qawasmeh, 20, a student at the Palestine Polytechnic University who bombed the Egged Line 37 bus filled with school-children in Haifa on March 5, 2003, killing 17 people. The other Hamas terrorists who planned the bus massacre were freed from prison (despite the multiple life terms to which they were sentenced) in the 2011 Gilad Shalit Transaction
• Abd Al-Karim Tahaineh, another Islamic Jihad terrorist fanatic from Jenin, executed a lethal bus bombing while a passenger on board Egged bus line 823 on March 5, 2002. One person was killed, many passengers on board were injured, as the bus exploded on entering the Afula central bus station.
• Ragheb Ahmed Izzat Jaradat, a terrorist from Jenin in the service of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, exploded on April 10, 2002 in an attack on a bus, Egged Line 960, traveling from Haifa to Jerusalem. The explosion, at Yagur Junction close to Kibbutz Yagur on the outskirts of Haifa, resulted in the deaths of eight people, with 22 more injured.
• 'Ala Sabbah, who executed a car bombing at Hadera's central bus station on May 25, 2001, injuring 65 people
• Daoud Ali Ahmed Abu Sway, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist from the Bethlehem area who carried out a bombing attack near the entrance to the Citadel David Hotel, previously called the Jerusalem Hilton, on December 5, 2001. There were few casualties only because his bomb exploded earlier than intended.

(Much of the detailed info in the Ynet report is unfortunately inaccurate or incomplete. We reviewed their data and checked and corrected where needed; what appears above includes our corrections.)

No word yet on the celebratory aspects that are certain to be in preparation on the far side of the border fence. And concerning our own personal and very bitter experience at the High Court, you are invited to read Frimet Roth's June 2012 article.

UPDATE: Times of Israel ["Bodies of Sbarro bomber and other terrorists set to be released to PA"] has picked up on the story, but raises questions about how many bodies are in the arrangement.

2-Oct-07: Releasing terrorists - the track record so far

Israel's release of imprisoned terrorists today and yesterday can be understood against the decades-long historical background. This was not the first such confidence-building prisoner release. It might not be the last. But ignoring the past outcomes... that's not smart.

A few instances to mull. (And more here.)

Marwan Barghouti
Arrested first in 1976; released and became a leader in the first Arafat War ("intifada"). Arrested and expelled to Jordan; then allowed to return in 1994. Became head of the Tanzim terrorists in 2000, supervising multiple terror attacks, and the deaths by murder of 35 Israelis. Arrested again in 2002, sentenced after a highly-public and full criminal trial to five life sentences. Current status: PA is demanding his release. The Israeli security service (Shabak) objects, but numerous Israeli politicians believe nothing good will come from the dialogue with the Palestinians until Barghouti is released and takes his place as their leader. Many Israelis believe this is hopelessly misguided. Meanwhile he's in prison.

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
First arrested in 1983. Released a year later as part of the Ahmed Jibril exchange. Became a founder of Hamas in 1987. Then arrested for ordering the kidnapping and killing of two soldiers and sentenced to life in prison. Israeli government decided to release him in 1997 as part of the apologies that followed an unsuccessful assassination of Khaled Mashaal, an arch Hamas terrorist. Yassin continued to organize terrorist attacks until he was killed by an Israeli pin-point rocket attack in 2004.

Saleh Shehade
Released from prison in 2000. Went on to head the Hamas military wing from where he oversaw multiple terror attacks, including the infiltration into an IDF outpost in which four soldiers were killed, and the terror attack on Atzmona where five young students were killed. Was quoted in May 2002 on the Islamic Online Web site saying: "One should prepare children carefully before carrying out attacks and recruit them into a special military section of [Hamas] in order to teach them the culture of jihad". His career ended in an IDF air attack on his home in 2002.

Abdullah Kawasme
First arrested in 1988 and then exiled by Israel to southern Lebanon in 1992. Upon his return to Israel he was imprisoned, and when released in 1994, he returned to his home in Hebron. Although arrested by the Palestinian Authority, he was released and allowed to return to his Hamas operations at the start of the Intifada. Kawasme became commander of Hamas's Izz-a-din al-Kassam military wing in March 2003. Supervised many terror attacks and more than 40 Israeli deaths: nicknamed "Father of the Ticking Time Bombs. Killed in an Israeli operation while trying to escape arrest in June 2003.

Karim Ratab Yunis Awis
Sentenced to life in prison in 1991 for intentionally causing the deaths of several Palestinian Arabs regarded by his circle as 'collaborators'. Released in another "confidence-building' gesture by the government of Israel. Subsequently in November 2001, he despatched two terrorists to fire on Afula's central bus station: 2 killed, 84 wounded. In March 2003, he despatched a human-bomb to Jerusalem's King George street where he murdered three and wounded 81 others. Re-arrested, and at his trial the court observed that his release led to the murder of additional innocent people. "The level of danger the accused poses was clear after he was found guilty the first time. The need to remove him from human society forever was obvious. After his release, the accused proved that this gesture was not justified, and a very high price was paid by many Israeli families". Now serving multiple life-sentences in an Israeli prison. Until...?

Nasser Abu Hameid
Spent 13 years in Israeli prisons after being sentenced to several life sentences for murder. Released by Israel in September 1999 in the Sharm-a-Sheikh 'understanding'. Subsequently was personally involved in the lynch mob that murdered two Israeli servicemen in 2000, personally murdered several other Israelis in 2000 and then in 2002 seupervised a series of terror attacks that cost the lives of several more. Sentenced in Jerusalem's District Court in December 2002 to seven life sentences and 50 years imprisonment after confessing to the murder of 7 Israelis and convicted on 12 counts of attempted murder and other crimes. Still in prison for now.

Abbas Mahmoud Al-Said
Imprisoned for his role in riots in Tul Karem in 1993. Released in 1996 and then convicted in 2003 of supervising the Passover massacre at Netanya's Park Hotel (30 killed, 144 injured) and other attacks. Still in prison for now.

The full list is a good deal longer.