14-Dec-16: In Jerusalem's Old City this afternoon, an Arab-on-Israeli stabbing

Why so many head and neck injuries among Israeli victims
of Arab terror attacks? The answer is shockingly simple.
[Image Source]

Judah Ari Gross, the Times of Israel's military correspondent, filed this report a little after noon today (Wednesday):

A police officer was stabbed in the head and lightly wounded in an attack in the Old City of Jerusalem on Wednesday, police said. A 12-year-old resident of East Jerusalem who had a light head wound claimed he had also been attacked by the assailant... The attacker had approached a group of officers near the Lions’ Gate in the Old City. As he got close to them, he pulled out a screwdriver and attacked one of the officers, police said. The other officers in the area opened fire, shooting the assailant. According to police, he was a 21-year-old Palestinian man from the Palestinian village of Beit Surik, northwest of Jerusalem. He was taken Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus. The Palestinian man arrived at the hospital in critical condition. After extensive CPR attempts, doctors pronounced him dead... ["Cop stabbed in head with screwdriver, lightly hurt in Jerusalem attack", Times of Israel, December 14, 2016]

News reports about victims being stabbed in the head by criminal assailants are not that common - but here in Israel they are. That's because an actual organized education campaign to encourage Palestinian Arabs to attack specific vulnerabilities in their victims' bodies, and providing detailed instructions for maximizing body damage, has produced a large number of terrible outcomes and horrific injuries among Israeli terror victims. There's more on this under-reported reality, in "Videos teach would-be Palestinian attackers ‘how to stab’", a Times of Israel article from October 2015 when the current wave of stabbings moved into high gear.

In a break with customary practice, the Ma'an News Agency - whose reports generally take a sympathetic approach to the perpetrators of Arab-on-Israeli terror - described the lethal attack in what is, for its editors, a relatively straight-forward way:

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian after he carried out a stabbing attack... ["Israeli police shoot, kill Palestinian after stab attack leaves 2 lightly injured", Ma'an, December 14, 2016]

The appalling background to this screen-grab
image is here

But then slipped into a more familiar voice:

Al-Samri [the Arabic-speaking spokesperson for the Israel Police] shared a photograph of the screwdriver reportedly used by the Palestinian to carry out the stabbing attack. The picture did not show visible traces of blood on the alleged weapon... [Ma'an again]

Alleged may be the Ma'an editorial team's single most favourite word. Once you know about the eduction campaign we just mentioned, you get a sense of just how deceitful the use of "alleged" really is.

Ma'an's Arabic online edition [here] gets straight to its usual point, declaring the attacker a "martyr" in the story's headline.

In the Arabic social media tonight, he's been identified as Hammad Khader Sheikh. Posters (here's one) with his portrait and declaring him a role-model for teenage Palestinian Arabs to emulate are already on walls throughout the villages in our area tonight.

His last posts on Facebook are being promoted (here and in lots of other places) tonight by the usual purveyors of Arab-on-Israeli terror.

15-Dec-15: Hear about the stabbing in the heart of Jerusalem this afternoon?

Allegedly, today's attempted 
stabbing attacker, her 
face obscured (by us) [Image Source]

Several people were not killed, others not injured, in yet another Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attack in the heart of Jerusalem.

The attacker, a Palestinian Arab woman, attracted the suspicions of Border Police officers patrolling the center of the capital. We learned that they stopped her on Dorot Rishonim Street, right in the business and tourism center, the area called Jerusalem's Meshulash ("Triangle"), and carried out a search in the course of which a screwdriver was found on her (exactly where is not said).

The Israeli victims - perhaps a pensioner or two, a kindergarten child walking with a parent, a soldier getting a coffee - who thankfully were spared being attacked, don't even know they were about to fall prey to yet another jihad-minded opportunist with PA-government-approved incitement ringing in her ears. The men who preside over Hamas would be delighted with what she tried to do [here's some evidence].

Ynet says she is now under arrest and will be charged with terrorism offences.

We ourselves have just gotten back from being in the center of Jerusalem. The attempt and the arrest must have happened when we were either on or right next to the short street where the arrest was done. We knew nothing about it. We must have seen a couple of dozen young Arab women dressed like her, looking more or less like her - and gave it no thought. Some were on the bus with us. Many were window-shopping or walking into or out of some of the city's cafes, with friends, alone, in groups. That's Jerusalem.

Via the social media, this image of her ID card and the screwdriver tells us she is in her twenties, lives in Jerusalem and has Israeli government ID like the attacker who rammed a cluster of Israelis at a Jerusalem bus stop a day earlier.

Her Israeli government-issued 
ID and the screwdriver [Image Source]

Life would be so much simpler if, in the course of opening up Israeli society to everyone (the exact opposite of what Israel is widely accused of doing), terrorists with mayhem on their minds wore a sticker on their foreheads announcing them as potential stabbers or shooters or bombers or rammers. Because that's not how life is lived here, we owe a debt of deep thanks to the vigilant and courageous security people and those responsible for training and deploying them.

UPDATE: Tuesday December 15, 2015: Times of Israel has this arrest as its main story at this hour (4:00 pm). They say: "During questioning, the woman admitted she had intended to carry out a stabbing attack, police added. Palestinians have used screwdrivers in stabbing attacks several times in recent months."