18-Jan-20: Red lines, defilement and more Arab-on-Israeli knifings

The Kiryat Arab victim in today's Israel National News report

If you rely on news reports alone, the ebb and flow of Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks can seem to happen without any obvious pattern or underlying motivation.

But sometimes, you wait a little and you learn that there are forces at work that wanted these to happen.

We're mostly in the dark about what's driving events here in the Jerusalem area today. But as always, there are clues. And yes, a Palestinian Arab child is involved. Again.

From Times of Israel, we know a man of 22 suffered moderate injuries this afternoon (Saturday - Shabbat) when he was stabbed in the shoulder by "a Palestinian youth" (a term that can have multiple meanings) in Kiryat Arba. The knifer was arrested while trying to escape the scene of the attack according to the IDF is in their hands for questioning. Haaretz says the stabber is an as-yet-unnamed seventeen year old. Keep that in mind the next time you see, and you surely will see, hostile news coverage complaining of how Israel takes so many children into custody.

The knifing victim is in Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center where they say he is in stable condition. Israel National News this evening says the Israeli is Moshe Greenblatt, who says from his hospital bed that "Thank G-d, I feel good... The knife broke and he didn't manage to stab any of the people around me."

Earlier today (Saturday - the Jewish Sabbath), a Palestinian Arab female said to be "in her fifties" was taken into custody by Border Police officers after threatening them with a knife at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem’s Old City. The Times of Israel report says she was subdued by officers and a civilian who happened to be at the scene and is also undergoing questioning.

Friday morning, right after the completion of their morning prayer service which were attended by an estimated 8,000 people, hundreds of Muslim Arab worshipers chanted about killing Jews outside the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem's Temple Mount. Police dispersed the crowd. Times of Israel says no one was injured in the clashes with police.

TV footage from the march shows members of the unruly crowd shouting in Arabic “Jews, remember Khaybar, the army of Muhammad is returning.”

Video clip from 124news.tv

It's a recurring theme - the chant recalls how in the seventh century Muslims massacred and expelled Jews from the town of Khaybar, located in today's Saudi Arabia. Their chants also included “With spirit and blood, we will salvage Al-Aqsa” and “Jews, the army of Al-Aqsa is returning.”

Hamas, on Friday, declared itself happy with the unrest. Times of Israel quotes one of its spokespeople saying the morning prayers “support our people in their campaign against the Zionist occupation and thwart its racist plans.”

This past Wednesday, Hamas publicly called for Palestinian Arabs to “mobilize” during Friday’s prayers against the “defilement” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Hebron’s Tomb of the Patriarchs by “the Zionist occupation.” The terrorists sought to persuade Israeli authorities that “our sanctities are a red line that cannot be tolerated.”

17-Oct-19: At dawn today, a thwarted Arab-on-Israeli vehicle-ramming-and-knifing attack

The attack vehicle driven by a 20 year old
Palestinian Arab [Image Source]

In another Arab-on-Israel vehicle ramming attack around dawn this morning (Thursday) on the outskirts of Ramallah, a vehicle driven by a Palestinian Arab drove directly at police officers in an attempt to run them over. Haaretz says the officers were in plain clothes and their car was unmarked.

The resulting impact significantly damaged the police vehicle. The attack car was too (see right).

The officers realized almost immediately that their attacker was clutching what a news report ["Palestinian attempts ramming attack against Border Police", Jerusalem Post, October 17, 2019] calls "a suspicious object". This turned out to be knife.

Israelis have visceral reactions these days to rampaging Arabs with knives in their hands. They promptly directed live fire at their attacker who, we now know, is a resident of eastern Jerusalem said to be twenty years old.

His injuries are currently being tended to in Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center hospital. He is reportedly alive and in serious condition.

Al-Amari, called a refugee camp for the past seventy years [Image Source]

Rioting ensued soon after the attack, with rocks and Molotov cocktails (firebombs) being hurled at Israeli security officials, who "responded with riot control measures" in the words of the Jerusalem Post report.

The violence took place in the al-Amari "refugee camp" which is today under full Palestinian Authority control. It houses about 5,000 Palestinian Arabs and has existed since 1949.

The Arab version of what happened according to the alquds.com Arabic-language news site includes a car and a shooting. But no ramming and no knife:

An eyewitness said the driver of the vehicle was surprised by the presence of army patrols which led to a collision with one of the military jeeps. The soldiers fired three shots at the driver who was seriously injured and was taken by ambulance while the soldiers arrested a second young man beside him after forcing him to undress and undergo a search.

Ronen Lubarsky, 20, a soldier in the elite IDF Duvdevan Unit, was struck on the head during an operation to arrest suspected terrorists in the same al-Amari neighborhood on May 24, 2018 [Times of Israel, May 28, 2018]. A heavy slab of granite hurled from a third-story rooftop struck the young soldier who was hospitalized in critical condition at Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem’s intensive care unit. He died some days later. A Palestinian Arab, Islam Yusef Abu Hamid, was subsequently charged with his death and convicted in April 2019.

07-Oct-19: How hard is it to produce 12 year old knife-attackers?

We don''t claim to be 100% sure but a social media post [here]

suggests this is the stabber described in our post.

The world-class treatment he's getting is courtesy of

Shaarei Zedek Medical Center and the government of Israel

With a current news item in mind, here's some insight into how the Palestinian Authority's policy of child weaponization works.

We wrote here a week and a half ago ["27-Sep-19: Weaponized Palestinian Arab children and more Arab-on-Israel stabbings"] about an on-duty female member of the Israel Police being injured in the course of a frenzied stabbing attack launched by a Palestinian Arab boy of thirteen. We were wrong: he was twelve. And it's evident he didn't intend to inflict mild trauma. He was very likely intent on killing.

The boy apppeared in court yesterday.

12-year-old indicted for Jerusalem attack in which officer was lightly injured | Boy charged with terror offenses for attempting to stab police officers in Old City last month; female officer was lightly hurt when barrier fell on her hand during scuffle | Times of Israel | 6 October 2019 | The Jerusalem district attorney on Sunday indicted a 12-year-old boy under terror laws for the attempted stabbing of a policewoman in Jerusalem’s Old City last month.
According to the indictment, on September 26, the day of the attack, the minor attended prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. At the conclusion of prayers, he allegedly walked up to a group of female officers at the Temple Mount’s Chain Gate, above the Western Wall area, pulled out a knife and attempted to stab the officers. During the ensuing scuffle, a female officer, age 34, was lightly injured when a security barrier fell on her hand. According to the indictment, a staff member of the Waqf, the Muslim trust that oversees the site, tried to catch the boy and keep the police from him.
The boy was overpowered at the scene and arrested.
The boy is accused of committing an act of terror in which he unlawfully attempted to injure a person with a knife for religious and national motive. Prosecutors asked that the boy remain detained until the end of legal proceedings.

There's no indication whether the Waqf worker who tried to prevent the police from taking the stabber into custody will face criminal or terror charges. If he's not, that's disturbing.

Here's some of the background that put the boy in the photo above into, first, an Israeli hospital bed and then Israel's juvenile criminal justice system where he's now fated to spend some of what should have been his best years.

First, let's understand the meaning of Waqf, an Arabic term defined [Wikipedia] as "confinement and prohibition" or causing a thing to stop or stand still. In the legal sense, it is said to mean the detention of a specific thing for purposes of "charity of poors [sic] or other good objects".

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan imposed a waqf on Jerusalem after the invasion by its British-led army, and the subsequent two-decade long massively-destructive conquest and occupation, of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the wake of the 1948 Israeli War of Independence.

After East Jerusalem was liberated in the course of the June 1967 Six-Day War, Israel - for pragmatic reasons related to its desire for neighborly relations and respect for Muslim sensibilities - allowed the waqf to re-assert its authority over the Temple Mount, which happens to be Judaism's holiest site.

Jordan's King Abdullah II "currently supplies all of the funding needed to operate the waqf." But as a recent analysis of changes in its structure shows, ["New Waqf Council Managing the Temple Mount", JCPA - Nadav Shragai, Lenny Ben-David | February 28, 2019], the Waqf is poised to do more harm:

The main, most dramatic change in the composition of the Waqf... was the joining of Sheikh Akram Sabri, currently chairman of the Supreme Muslim Council and former Mufti of Jerusalem. Sabri is now identified with the Muslim Brotherhood’s “the northern faction of the Islamic Movement” in Israel, and he follows the orders of Turkey and its President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Some also believe that he is close to Hamas. At the beginning of the second intifada, Sabri identified with suicide bombings, and he is known for his extreme pronouncements against Israel... Other new members of the Jordanian Waqf, who Jordan agreed to allow into the new council after it was expanded from 11 members to 18 are mainly affiliated with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority... Until the establishment of the new Waqf, most of its members were pro-Jordanian. Its new composition expresses a united front [among] the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, and people like Sheikh Akram Sabri – and anyone who fears for Jordan’s future status on the Temple Mount. It is a joint coalition against the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.

The weaponization of Palestinian Arab children by the kleptocratic/geriatric Mahmoud Abbas regime that rules them is the result of several concurrent strategies that have been implemented for years by now:

• Large long-term monthly payments to prisoners and the families of dead terrorists by the Palestinian Authority, funded from a deficit budget that is replenished via foreign aid grants to the PA. These Pay-to-Slay payments as they are comminly termed grow with the seriousness of the terror offense. 
• Overt, explicit incitement to more acts of terror by the Palestinian Authority and by terror groups
• The recruiting and training of children to engage in conflict: Special mention to the United Nations UNRWA people responsible these past seven decades for nurturing, preserving, perpetuating and legitimizing the violent discontent of Palestinian Arab schookl children.
• The systematic glorification of Arab-on-Israeli violence throughout Palestinian Arab society
• The deliberate, ideology-driven abandonment of weaponized Palestinian Arab children by the numerous child-protection agencies that raise billions each year on the profoundly dishonest premise that, like DCI Palestine, they are "committed to securing a just and viable future for Palestinian children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory".

With all these in place, getting to the results they want are not that challenging.

Israel attracts serious criticism for its treatment of child offenders. In large measure, this is dishonest, politically-spun and based on poorly understood data. For instance, as a respected human rights organization based in Israel reported in February 2018 [NGO Monitor] in an essay that contradicts some of what "everyone knows" about Israel's "failures":

• Some 90,000 children aged between 10 and 17 were arrested in England and Wales between April 2015 and March 2016, an average of about 7,500 per month. Adjust these numbers for population and you can make this highly relevant comparison - that minors are arrested in England and Wales (where armed conflict is not currently a major feature of life) 5.5 times more often than Palestinian Arab minors living in the so-called West Bank are.
• In data covering the years since since 2013 (a period of considerable Arab-on-Israeli violence and the massive Arab promotion of terror), the number of Palestinian Arab minors arrested annually in areas under Israeli control was between 800 and 1,000. 
• Of these arrested, how many were subjected to prosecution? About 450-505. Thus on average, in a population of roughly a million minors (quoting Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics data), fewer than 85 such minors are arrested each month and fewer than half of those are prosecuted.
• And this: International law and Article 66 of the Fourth Geneva Convention mandates that Israel must establish military courts as part of its obligation to “take all the measures in [its] power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety.” Moreover, Israel's law and enforcement practices meet all the requirements of “due process,” the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Article 68 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The rules of evidence applied by the Military Courts are the same as the rules of evidence applied in the Israeli domestic criminal justice system.

These are not points that the chorus of child-weaponizers and their foreign-government-funders, backers and advocates want us to know.

Nor do they advertise the single most important take-away we can think of: that, given Pal Arab society's massive ongoing investment, it is dead easy to weaponize pre-teen Palestinian Arab boys and girls and turn them into killers.

21-Dec-18: After the terror attacks, the focus moves on as the quiet struggle of the victims continues

Shira and Amichai Ish-Ran speak to reporters from hospital
five days ago [Image Source]. Their baby did not survive the cowardly attack.

Based on reports in the past few hours from several news sources, including Times of Israel and Jerusalem Post, here are some updates on the Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks of the past ten days.

Amichai Ish-Ran, who took three bullets in the leg as a civilian victim - alongside his wife - of a  drive-by shooter at a bus stop near the entrance to the Israeli community of Ofra ["09-Dec-18: A shooter in a passing vehicle seriously injures several Israelis tonight near Ofra, north of Jerusalem"] is thankfully doing well enough that he was released from Shaarei Zedek Medical Center yesterday (Thursday).

His wife Shira, who suffered critical injuries in the attack, is said to be "steadily recovering". She had further surgery on Wednesday and this is reported by the hospital to have been successful. The baby boy she was carrying in her womb when they were shot died four days after the attack after being born under emergency conditions by Caesarian section.

An IDF soldier, 21-year-old Naveh Rotem, who was critically injured this past Friday when stabbed and head-bashed with a rock by a Palestinian Arab at a military post outside the Israeli community of Beit El is thankfully doing much better. The attacker who fled the scene, prompting a manhunt, later turned himself in.

The soldier, had been taken to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in life-threatening condition, unconscious and hooked up to a ventilator. The hospital said in a statement that Rotem had been treated by multiple medical experts over the past week, and quoted neurosurgeon Dr. Iddo Paldor as saying he was returning home “in good condition, strong and smiling.” Rotem will undergo followup treatment. His parents said in a statement that they were “happy to thank all the hospital staff,” saying they had “felt we were in good hands..." [Times of Israel]

Shira Sabag, a civilian seriously injured in last week’s Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack ["13-Dec-18: Another lethal Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack Thursday"] at a bus stop near the small Israeli community of Givat Assaf, is said to be improving though still hospitalized at Shaare Zedek.

An IDF soldier, Netanel Felber, whose family made aliyah to Israel from the US a decade ago, is still reported to be critically injured and fighting for his life and suffering gunshot wounds to his head in the attack, He has undergone multiple surgeries at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital. Two of his army colleagues, Yovel Mor-Yosef and Yosef Cohen, were killed in the attack.

It was reported yesterday (Thursday) that the main perpetrators of both the Ofra and Givat Assaf attacks are brothers, As'am Barghouti, 32, and Saleh Omar Barghouti, 29, clansmen and residents of the same village (up until he was incarcerated) of prominent Palestinian Arab convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti. (There's some background here: "18-Apr-17: So what, in reality, is Marwan Barghouti?") Salih Barghouti was shot last Wednesday in a village near Ramallah as he resisted apprehension by Israeli security forces. The attack allegedly carried out by As'am Barghouti happened the following day. There is an ongoing manhunt for him.

It was also reported yesterday for the first time that this As'am Barghouti was released from an Israeli prison in April 2018 after serving an 11-year sentence.

We personally sat through the 2003/4 terrorism trial of Marwan Barghouti in Tel Aviv (he was convicted and has been in prison since then). Beyond the homicides for which he was convicted, we learned that Barghouti personally laid out $500 [source] for the making of the explosive-filled guitar case that was brought to, and exploded inside, Jerusalem's Sbarro pizzeria destroying it on August 9, 2001 and killing fifteen innocent people including our daughter Malki. 

The Sbarro bombmaker, the inventor of that grotesque explosive-and-nails-filled guitar case, was another Barghouti clansman, Kuwait-born Abdullah Barghouti. About him, we have written numerous times. Here's one piece: "20-Jun-13: Abdullah Barghouti, terrorist, bomb-maker, killer of 66 innocents, has some demands".

When churchman Desmond Tutu, himself a Nobel Peace Prize winner,
nominated convicted murderer and terrorist Marwan Barghouti for the same
award, he tweeted the news with this photo of himself with Mrs Marwan
Barghouti [Twitter Source]

And yet one more clansman, Bilal Yaqub Barghouti, a senior Hamas operative, was personally sheltered by Marwan Barghouti in his home when Bill Barghouti was on the run from the Israeli security forces because of his involvement in the massacre at the Sbarro pizzeria (he was later convicted for his part). Bilal Barghouti said for the record that, during his stay there, "he saw a number of weapons, and when he left the house Barghouti armed him with a gun for his use."

Unlike most of the Sbarro Massacre plotters, Bilal Barghouti still resides in an Israeli prison cell. On being sentenced in 2003, he said: "Thank god. I regret that I did not kill even more people than I did kill". (More background here: "24-Aug-18: What aid funds handed to the Abbas regime ($1 million and growing) have done for savages who kill Jews".)

And this: Marwan Barghouti, whom the Nobel Prize-winning social activist church-man Desmond Tutu odiously nominated for a Nobel Prize in 2017, is arguably an unindicted accessory-after-the-fact to the Sbarro murders. (It would be nice if someone were to forward this post to Archbishop Tutu in South Africa.)

May all the victims needing a full and rapid recovery get it.

13-Dec-18: Another lethal Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack Thursday

The scene of today's Givat Asaf  shooting [Hadas Parush/Flash90]

There has been another shooting attack today (Thursday): reports say two Israelis were killed - both of them IDF soldiers according to Israel National News - and two others were severely injured, one critically.

The attack happened near the Palestinian Arab town of Silwad, on Route 60 near the Givat Asaf community, about two kilometers from Ofra, the site of the Sunday night shooting.

The shooters escaped after the attack and a large-scale IDF manhunt is currently underway.

Times of Israel, quoting the Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, says one gunman exited a vehicle along the Route 60 highway and opened fire at a group of soldiers and civilian Israelis before fleeing. It seems likely that the soldiers were there doing security work - probably standing guard to protect the civilians.

It also quotes Palestinian Arab media saying the attack vehicle was quickly abandoned nearby and two suspects — the driver and the shooter — got away on foot in the direction of Ramallah.

Two of the victims were declared dead at the scene. One of the injured, a 21-year-old male, is in critical life-threatening condition with a bullet wound to the head. He is receiving emergency care at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital.

A female civilian is seriously injured and is getting emergency care at the trauma center of Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

The army has closed off the entrances to Ramallah and set up roadblocks throughout the area. Additional infantry battalions were sent into the West Bank both to defend roads and settlements and to conduct additional searches and arrests, the army said.

UPDATE Thursday December 13, 2018 at 9:00 pm: As reported this evening, the soldiers shot to death are Staff Sgt. Yovel Mor Yosef, 20, and Sgt. Yosef Cohen, 19.

Mor Yosef was from the southern city of Ashkelon. Cohen was a resident of Beit Shemesh. Both were members of the Kfir Brigade’s Netzah Yehuda infantry battalion, a unit for religious soldiers... Mor Yosef’s funeral will be held in Ashkelon and Cohen’s in Jerusalem on Friday morning. A third soldier was critically injured in the shooting and underwent surgery for a gunshot wound to the head at Hadassah Hospital Ein Karem in Jerusalem on Thursday. A civilian woman was also seriously wounded... [Times of Israel]

09-Dec-18: A shooter in a passing vehicle seriously injures several Israelis tonight near Ofra, north of Jerusalem

The facts are still somewhat unclear though enraging and upsetting. Here is what we understand.

People (not yet identified - apparently two individuals) inside a moving white sedan directed gunfire at a small group of Israeli standing at the roadside near Ofra, a community of about 4,000 Israelis located in the Binyamin region about 20 km north of the Israeli capital Jerusalem. The attack occurred around 9:00 pm Sunday night.

Times of Israel says seven people are shot (we have seen other credible reports that there are 9 - we will wait for the fog to clear). At least one, a pregnant woman, is said to be in critical condition.

Of the other injured people, two are reported to be moderately wounded and four are somewhat less seriously hurt. Israel National News says two of them are 16 year old girls. Aljazeera's mind-reading field reporters already "know" that the shooting victims are "settlers". (Obviously they have absolutely no idea at this stage but it's a well-established practice designed to demean and dehumanize the innocent victims of Arab shooting frenzies down through the ages.)

After first responder care at the scene by Magen David Adom ambulance crews, all are now in hospitals - Shaarei Zedek Medical Center and Hadassah Mt Scopus - receiving emergency treatment.

Security camera video of the shooting, posted to multiple social media sites in the past half hour, shows the white car slowing down near what appears to be a bus-stop or hitch-hiking post. Bullets are seen striking the victims who rush to escape the point-blank fire. The car stops for a few moments, then leaves the scene at high speed. Heroes.

A major manhunt is now underway.

UPDATE Monday December 10, 2018 at 6:00 am: Via Israel National News, the pregnant shooting victim is a young woman of 21, with the Hebrew name (for prayer purposes) Shira Yael bat Liora. Her baby was delivered, premature, by caesarean section and then placed in the NICU for emergency care. The mother is "suffering from gunshot wounds in the pelvic area and abdomen. The woman arrived in critical condition, she lost a lot of blood, received blood transfusions, was stabilized and was taken to the operating room for urgent emergency surgery."

UPDATE Wednesday December 12, 2018 at 7:00 pm: Sadly, "Baby dies after emergency delivery following Ofra terror attack"

“With great sorrow we announce the death of Shira and Amichai’s newborn four days after the attack despite the efforts of doctors at the neonatal intensive care unit to save him,” a spokesperson for Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem said, referring to the baby’s parents. A funeral for the baby will be held at 9:45 p.m. (tonight - Wednesday) at the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem.

18-Mar-18: Near Lions Gate in Jerusalem's Old City, an Israeli is stabbed by an Arab attacker

Image Source: Reuters

The Palestinian Arab days of rage continue to exert their hideous influence.

There has been a late-Sunday-afternoon stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Old City near the ancient and famous Lions Gate. Times of Israel's report says a terrorist attacker stabbed and critically injured an Israeli on Hagai Street in Jerusalem’s Old City Muslim Quarter. He was quickly shot dead at the scene by an Israel Police officer.

The victim is said to be in “very serious” condition with multiple stab wounds to the upper body. He is about 30 years old. He was rushed from the scene of the attack to the trauma center of Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center for treatment.

What we know about the stabber is that he was 28 years-old and from the village of Aqraba, near Nablus, known in Hebrew as Shechem. His name is given as Abd al-Rahman Bani Fadel. It's a common Arab surname in the Nablus area.

Arab-on-Israeli attacks in the vicinity of Lions Gate are far from unknown. We have reported on these in the past three years (and there may have been more): 13-May-17: In Jerusalem's Old City, a Jordanian stabs an Israeli and the Jordanians are outraged (so are we, for different reasons); 13-Mar-17: Jerusalem and the (alleged) knife-men; 03-Oct-15: Arab violence escalates in Jerusalem: Multiple stabbings in Old City tonight.

The Arab view, as exemplified by this quote from a Naharnet news report, is that "tensions" are high

after Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas called for a day of rage on Friday to commemorate 100 days since U.S. President Donald Trump's controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Yes, tensions. Tell that to the family of the young Israeli fighting for his life this evening.

Image Source

UPDATE Monday morning, March 19, 2018 at 12:15 am: We're sorry to have to report that the Israeli victim of today's stabbing attack has died. Israel National News says he is Adiel Kolman, a resident of Kochav Hashahar, originally from the community of Keshet in the Golan Heights - married and the father of four children.

The Jerusalem Post says

Kolman, 32, a father of four, was killed in a terror attack on Sunday evening as he left his job at the City of David museum in the Old City and headed in the direction of Jerusalem’s light rail. It was a route he took every day to return to his home in the Kokhav HaShahar settlement, just outside of the capital. A terrorist stabbed him in the upper part of his body as he neared the area of the Lion’s Gate entrance to the Old City of Jerusalem. He was rushed to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in serious condition and died just before midnight. Kolman grew up in Moshav Keshet in the Golan Heights. He leaves behind children in third and second grade as well as in kindergarten and day care. His wife, Ayelet, is a social worker.

07-Feb-18: In Gush Etzion's Karmei Tzur, another Arab-on-Israeli knifing Wednesday morning

The secured entrance to Karmei Tzur this morning [Image Source]

At the secured entrance to the Israeli community of Karmei Tzur (an hour's drive south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem via the Tunnels Road) in Gush Etzion, a Palestinian Arab equipped with an attack knife stabbed one of the security people inside the booth at around 6:30 this morning (Wednesday). Times of Israel says a second security person shot the assailant and killed him.

The Israeli who suffered knifing injuries, said to be a male of about 34, was treated at the scene by Magen David Adom paramedics. He was then rushed to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital, fully conscious, for emergency care.

We're evidently in the midst of one of those periodic upticks in Arab-on-Israeli knifing attacks.

Meanwhile the narrative-spinning of the Palestinian Arab news media continues in its customary manner:

HEBRON, February 7, 2018 (WAFA) – A Palestinian was shot dead by an Israeli security guard on Wednesday following an alleged stabbing attack at an illegal settlement north of Hebron, Palestinian and Israeli reports said. The Israeli army said a Palestinian stabbed a security guard at Karmi Tsur settlement near Halhoul, north of Hebron, before another guard shot him dead. The stabbed guard was taken to hospital where he was reported in light condition. The Palestinian coordinating office identified the alleged attacker as Hamzeh Yousef Zamaareh, 19, from Halhoul. Palestinians said Israeli soldiers raided the Zamaareh home following the incident. WAFA correspondent said residents of the area where the Zamaareh home is located clashed with the soldiers. No injuries were reported. ["Palestinian shot dead following alleged stabbing attack north of Hebron", WAFA, this morning]

Martyr-style portraits of Zamaareh (or Zamareh) are already circulating in the terrorism-friendly parts of the social media. Here's one that suggests he worked in a pizzeria. His family will now become eligible for payments from the terrorism-encouraging PA Martyr's Fund ("Rewards for Terror"). This however will not be mentioned in any mainstream media reports.

Halhoul appears frequently in our blog posts. No prizes for guessing why. The most recent murderous attack emanating from Halhoul that we reported is this one: "17-Nov-17: Ramming/stabbing attack Friday morning at entrance to Efrat"

17-Dec-17: Two Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks; both involve bombs

The heavily secured entrance to the Samaria Military Court where this
morning's attack was thwarted [Archive Image Source]

Far from the attention of the army of foreign reporters prowling our country for stories, Israeli alertness has thwarted a couple of especially hair-raising attacks by Palestinian Arab zealots intent on murder at any price, including their own lives. Both incidents involve bombs.

First this morning (Sunday). Times of Israel's account ["Palestinian arrested outside West Bank military court with suspected bomb", today] says a Palestinian Arab, still unidentified at this early stage, tried to make his way into one of Israel's military courts while wearing some prohibited underwear. 

He was stopped by on-duty Border Guard officers on arriving at the entrance to the Samaria Military Court (we think the one in Salim, in Israel's Jezreel Valley) with what appears - no one is certain yet - a bomb strapped to his body. It's a gorgeous early winter day, not cold, very sunny, and he was wearing an overcoat. One of the police required him to remove the coat, and the murderous thing concealed inside it it became evident.

Sappers are working to defuse the suspected explosive device as we write this. The court's entrance is now closed.

Notwithstanding those vague media reports appearing from time to time that Palestinian Arab terrorists have discontinued their fixation with body-mounted bombs and other forms of murderous self-immolation, a social media commentator posted this morning (in Hebrew) that there have been at least two very similar previous attacks by bombers this year, one on May 24 and one of October 15 (reported here), at the very same location.

Two days ago (Friday), a Palestinian Arab in another attack involving the Border Guard part of Israel's police, this time in the Arab town of Al-Bireh (population around 40,000), ran full-pelt towards the Israelis while brandishing a knife. As well armed as the police undoubtedly were, they held off doing the obvious - firing at the man with the very clear intentions - until he was upon them. He managed to stab one of the Israeli Border Guard men in the upper part of his body. 

Image Source: NYPost/AFP

He was wearing what the media are calling "a suicide vest". It's not clear whether the "suicide" device involved actual explosives or the mere appearance of them. Colleagues of the stabbed police officer, fearing he would explode and caused still more injuries, shot him. (It's captured on a graphic piece of video here.) He is now dead.

The Palestinian Authority health ministry, often the source for details about terrorists and their injuries, says the deceased attacker is named Mohammed Aqal, 29. 

As the AFP photo above makes plain, whether or not the knife-man had a working bomb under his jacket, he plainly wanted people to think he did. He also, it appears, wanted to seem to be a reporter according to this stunning article ["Police: Palestinian who stabbed border guard pretended to be a journalist", Times of Israel, today]

His injured victim is now in Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center where the official report issued this morning (Sunday) is, according to Ynet, that his condition is thankfully improving and he is now said to be in moderate condition.

10-Dec-17: A stabbing attack on a security guard shuts down Jerusalem's main bus station

The alleged attacker is pinned down by police
and security in an image from social media

A knifing attack reported a little after 2:15 pm this afternoon (Sunday) has left a security guard badly injured and undergoing treatment at Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center. Israel National News gives his age as about 25.

The attacker was stopped by means that are not yet clear but is reported to be alive. One source [here] describes him as a Palestinian Arab male of 24. Photos of his knife, dripping with blood, are circulating in the social media.

Times of Israel says the victim was unconscious by the time he reached the emergency room. It adds:

According to police, the suspected terrorist is a 24-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank. His name was not released. It was not immediately clear how he entered Israel, specifically if he had a work permit or if he had done so illegally. After he was subdued, the suspect was stripped to ensure he did not have a suicide vest or other weapon hidden under his clothes.

The Central Bus Station area, near the main entry point to Jerusalem and always congested during the afternoon peak hour, is now affected by police barriers and shut-downs.

Associated Press quotes Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld saying the guard was seriously wounded Sunday and his attacker arrested. The Magen David Adom medical service says a 30-year-old male suffered a stabbing wound in his upper body:

The incident appeared to be the first attack since President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The announcement set off protests and demonstration across the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and demonstrations around the world.

But let's be clear. Terrorism isn't a protest. Or a demonstration.

UPDATE 6:30 pm December 10, 2017: Times of Israel says the victim, an employee of a private security firm, is older than originally reported:

"Medics from the Magen David Adom ambulance service said they tried to stop the bleeding and applied bandages during the five-minute ambulance ride to the hospital. The victim, 46, was taken to the capital’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center for treatment where doctors were battling to stabilize his condition and save his life, said Dr. Ofer Merrin, the head of trauma center. “The knife, unfortunately, hit his heart. His condition has stabilized, but I cannot say that there’s not threat to his life because, like I said, he’s in serious condition,” the doctor said, adding that he was unconscious and connected to a respirator."

We don't have his name yet.

UPDATE 7:40 pm December 10, 2017: We're told the name (for prayer purposes - in Jewish tradition, the name of the mother is invoked) of the critically injured security guard is Asher ben Tamar. He could use everyone's prayers. The knifer, according to Israel National News, is a 24-year-old Palestinian Arab from Nablus (in Hebrew: Shechem), who goes by the name Yassin Abu Al-Keraa. [Others write it Yasin Abu al-Qur’a or al-Qar’a] He is being treated for his injuries. A Facebook post he uploaded today is translated as  “For Allah’s sake we rose up, we wish to raise the banner…to let our religion [Islam] exult once again, and to make the Al Aqsa Mosque [on the Temple Mount] once again be resplendent... Please let our blood be spilled – for it is of little matter to spill one’s blood for our homeland, for Jerusalem, and for the Al Aqsa Mosque.”

UPDATE 5:00 pm January 14, 2018
With deep thanks to the A-mighty, we can report that the security guard who was stabbed in the heart during a terror attack at Jerusalem’s Central Bus Station on December 10, 2017, was released today (Sunday) from Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center. Doctors say the condition of Asher Elmaliach, 46, is very good. He was transferred today to a rehabilitation program where efforts will continue to be made to help him regain his physical strength. Times of Israel says Elmaliach spent weeks on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine, or ECMO. This is designed to take the strain off the heart and lungs by undertaking some of their functions, removing carbon dioxide from the blood and resupplying it with oxygen. The attacker (we named him above) from Wadi al-Fara, near Nablus, was charged on December 28, 2017 with carrying out “a terrorist act of attempted murder” and with entering Israel illegally. The charge sheet says that on the morning of the vicious attack, al-Qar’a “said goodbye to his loved ones on the phone”, bought a knife and illegally traveled to Israel in order to carry out an act of terror. Having been told of Trump’s announcement to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, “the defendant planned to stab as many Jews as possible until he was killed and turned into a martyr,” the indictment reads. He first went to Hadera, taking advantage of an Israeli government permit that allowed him to enter the “seam zone” of the West Bank though but not Israel within the Green Line. Fearing he would be discovered if he traveled on a public bus, he took a NIS 500 ($140) cab ride from Hadera to Jerusalem. During the ride, he composed his last will and testament "based on what he’d been taught in Palestinian Authority schools", according to the indictment. At Jerusalem's Central Bus Station, he was stopped at the door by Elmaliach who asked him to pass through a metal detector before entering. The knife hidden in his coat was then detected at which point the attacker, realizing Elmaliach was Jewish, “decided to stab him to death”. He nearly succeeded.

17-Nov-17: Preoccupied

As we Tweeted some days ago

and then this

we're both spending serious time in hospital caring for a family member. This makes it hard to keep blogging for the moment. We hope to be able to get back to it soon.

Meanwhile of the seven specialists on the case, it happens that five are Arabs. This is only noteworthy if the discussion is things people don't know about ordinary Israeli life.

10-Sep-17: Chasing the killer of my child

Mishpacha originally published this interview
in Hebrew

An interview of Frimet Roth by the Israeli journalist Michal Ish Shalom originally appeared in the Hebrew weekly Mishpacha, August 24, 2017. An English translation, the work of Rochel Sylvetsky whose contribution we gratefully acknowledge, was published today on the Israel National News website under the title "The non-extradition of our daughter's murderer". Our thanks go to Mishpacha for their permission to use their Hebrew article in this way. (The cross-post that follows has some minor editing changes and we have inserted hyperlinks.)

Malki Roth was murdered in what is called the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing 16 years ago. 

Her parents hope that her terrorist murderer, against whom the US has issued an extradition request, will be brought to justice. The family hopes the US presses for extradition, is disappointed that Jordan does not honor its legal obligations to the US, and blames Netanyahu for not caring about families of terror victims.

Arnold and Frimet Roth, the parents of Malki Hy"D, murdered in the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing attack 16 years ago, were carefully optimistic on the day after the Purim holiday this year.

A delegation from the US Department of Justice came to Jerusalem to inform them that the United States was about to make an announcement later that day: a request for extradition had been presented to the Jordanian government. Jordan, which signed an extradition treaty with the United States in 1995, was being requested to extradite Ahlam al-Tamimi, the terrorist who planned and executed the suicide bombing in which their daughter was murdered. Tamimi was being added that day to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.

The Roths had initiated this process by meeting with US officials in Washington five years earlier – in February 2012. The Jordanians had been served with the extradition request months earlier, right before the High Holidays, and Interpol was involved. But now in mid-March 2017, the US were going to publicize the extradition request, leading the Roths to believe that justice was going to be done at last.

Frimet with our daughter Malki, April 2001

Malki, born in Melbourne Australia, came to Israel as a young child. Her mother is an American citizen, and as such, could obtain American citizenship for her daughter. That was not a significant part of Malki's too-short life, all of it lived in Israel. She grew up in Jerusalem, a happy, kindhearted teen, especially attuned to special needs chidren – her youngest sister Haya Elisheva suffered serious neurological impairment when she was a year old, a fact which caused Malki to volunteer with such children unstintingly.

On that unforgettable, bitter day, the 20th of Av (August 9, 2001), Malki went over to a friend's house.

"See you later, have a good time," said her mother Frimet, whose eyes were shut due to a severe migraine; she couldn’t even open them before her daughter left the house. "How I regret not looking at her that morning because the last time I saw her was the day before it happened," she says painfully. The loss of her daughter is palpable throughout our conversation; it gets harder to bear as the years pass.

Malki called from her friend's house to say that she was going to a get-together in the Talpiyot neighborhood and received her mother's permission to go. "I love you," the conversation ended - three words fated to become the last ones Frimet and her beloved daughter would exchange with one another.

And then – suddenly the terrible news - a major terrorist suicide bombing in the middle of downtown Jerusalem. Frimet’s thoughts were instantly with locating her children.

"I worried about them, because they left without taking a mobile phone. Malki had one with her, so I was less worried, " recalls Frimet. "Besides, she said she was going to Talpiyot and I knew that she would only be in town for as long as it took to switch buses."

Malki's siblings were located quickly – they were safe. Malki did not answer her mobile phone.

Anyone who remembers the chilling "routine" of the period in which suicide bomber attacks took place with horrendous frequency, knows that the cellular phone connections were always down, for security reasons, in an area in which an attack occurred. Since everyone had become used to that happening, they urged Frimet not to worry.

But a good deal of time passed, and then it turned out that Malki had never reached the get–together she planned to attend, nor did her friend Michal – who also could not be found.

"I still didn't get it. She was not even supposed to be in Sbarro," says Frimet. She and Michal's mother, along with Frimet's soldier son, a newly-enlisted hesdernik (in the 5 year yeshiva-army program) who had returned home to help, decided to go to Shaarei Zedek Hospital to look for their daughters.

On the way there, corroboration came in: Malki had been at Sbarro, she had sent a text message to someone to meet her there - a meeting that never took place.

"I began to scream," recalls Frimet. "I realized it was all over. At the hospital, we separated and each one of us searched for her own daughter. Michal's mother found her daughter still alive, but we did not find our Malki. In the office into which I was taken, they had me speak to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute so I could describe her, and for some reason they said there was no one who fitted my description."

This unbearable day continued, with family and friends searching other hospitals. Much later that night, on the advice of social workers in another of Jerusalem’s hospitals, two of Malki’s older brothers went there with a national insurance social worker.

"At 2 a.m. they called to tell us they had identified her."

Malki and her friend Michal were
always inseparable. Now they are
buried side by side.

Her friend Michal had been found barely alive, but she didn't make it and those were her last moments in this world. 

Malki and Michal, "beloved and pleasant during their lifetimes”, (as King David said of King Saul and his son) were buried side by side in Jerusalem's Har Hamenuchot cemetery.

That day marked the start of the Roth family's struggle. To memorialize Malki, they soon created the Malki Foundation which helps fund treatments for seriously disabled children who live at home and are cared for by their parents. Parents can choose among occupational therapy, therapeutic horseback riding, speech therapy, physiotherapy and hydrotherapy with 85% of the costs covered by the fund. It also lends special equipment to those children via a partnership with the Yad Sarah organization.

But along with the generous deeds associated with Malki's memory, the Roth family is engaged in fighting to have the terrorists brought to justice. This struggle is focused on Tamimi, the daughter of an infamous riot-inciting Arab family ["11-Sep-15: How devoted to non-violence are the villagers of Nabi Saleh really?"]. Tamimi was a communications student at Bir Zeit University who was born and raised in Jordan and had come to Israel to do her post-high school studies. She became Hamas’ first female terrorist.

Some days before the Sbarro attack, Tamimi tried to carry out an attack on a smaller scale, which failed because there were not enough explosives in the bomb she used. That made her prepare the Sbarro attack more carefully. Her press card (she did part-time work for a TV station in Ramallah) gave her free and easy access to Jerusalem ["5-May-13: Self-confessed jihadist murderer: "With my media card, I was able to enter back and forth, undetected..."].

In recent years she has described with chilling lack of emotion how she looked for a place where she could murder as many… women and children as possible. She found it in one of the fast food places at one of the most congested intersections in Jerusalem.

Malki, the talented classical flautist

Tamimi hid the bomb inside a guitar case, passing right through the IDF checkpoint on Jerusalem’s northern edge and along Jaffa Road with her lethal weapon – the suicide bomber. The two were dressed like ordinary English-speaking tourists and succeeded in looking completely harmless. She brought the suicide bomber to the Sbarro entrance and told him to wait until she got far enough away. She wanted to live.

"My daughter played guitar and flute. She played the classical flute beautifully and was in Jerusalem’s youth orchestra," Frimet said sadly. Malki was right next to the terrorist when he blew himself up. She probably stood near him, thinking: “Here is another music lover like me with a guitar on his back.”

Tamimi worked as a TV news-reader and in that evening’s bulletin impassively reported the terrorist attack - the attack she herself had just perpetrated.

There seems to be no limit to the evil with which the Roth family has to deal. Ahlam Tamimi, who continues to this day to boast of her crimes, was arrested about a month after the bombing and sentenced to 16 life sentences. Officially, 15 human beings were murdered in the attack, but in reality, there are 16 dead, Frimet emphasizes. One critically wounded victim, a young mother, has never came out of a coma.

Those 16 life sentences came to an end very quickly: Tamimi was freed six years ago as part of the Shalit deal ["19-Oct-11: Haaretz: Shalit prisoner swap marks 'colossal failure' for mother of Israeli bombing victim"].

"Even after Tamimi was freed, we did not get a response from anyone in the government, certainly not from the prime minister or his office," Frimet says, visibly upset. "Binyamin Netanyahu said publicly when announcing the Shalit deal: 'I sent letters to the families who were hit by terror'. That never happened. It is an utter lie. After his declaration, we took the initiative and called his office multiple times to ask which letters he meant, since we had never received one and neither had any of the many victim families we asked. The officials lied to us, making up stories about how the PM’s letters were in the mail. When I asked them how many letters were sent, and how come none of the terror stricken families I knew had received one, I heard someone in the background saying 'Tell her there were hundreds.' They simply fabricated an answer. No bereft family ever received a letter."

"We also never heard a word from the Shalit family telling us that they understand our sorrow and pain," she adds.

This, however, does not end the inexcusable behavior of the Netanyahu government towards terror-stricken families. After Tamimi was expelled to Jordan as part of the conditions for her release, she announced that she had become engaged to her cousin, another Shalit deal freed murderer-terrorist, another Tamimi. The conditions under which he was freed stipulated his remaining on the "West Bank" and not leaving the region. The conditions of her release were that she could never go there. The terrorist couple had the nerve to declare that the "cruel Israeli government" is the only factor preventing their marriage.

"We began to hear rumors that the government was about to allow him to cross into Jordan and we hired a lawyer to stop the government via an injunction. Wait a bit, the prime minister's office told us, don't take it in front of a High Court judge yet. We had the fleeting thought that the government was actually going to do something. While we were politely waiting, someone ensured the groom quickly crossed over the Allenby Bridge into Jordan. That's Netanyahu," she says. "They could not have allowed him to cross into Jordan without Netanyahu's authorization.”

Tamimi's wedding took place the following week ["22-Jun-12: A wedding and what came before it"]. They flaunted it. It was a highly-publicized victory for them, covered live via several Jordanian TV stations and the social media.

And what about us? How do we look? Victory after victory. Netanyahu will never do anything about our ludicrous justice system.

Perhaps the next prime minister will be able to do something, she says with faint hopes. "I hope he is coming close to the end of his stint as prime minister, because the things he did are unbelievable."

Chilling. Ahlam Tamimi, the murderer, recounts with heated enthusiasm
the circumstances of her ride from the scene of the bombing to her
work place, a TV studio in Ramallah

“Now that the terrorist who murdered our daughter is a married woman and evidently the mother of a young child - although that has never been publicized - she continues to make fun of us. She is a popular speaker, tells the story of her atrocity with obvious pride, is a broadcaster and used her own globally-broadcast TV show ["27-Apr-17: Satellite TV and other basic rights of terrorist life behind Israeli bars"] to allow incarcerated terrorists to make contact with their families. Officially, terrorists in Israeli prisons are not permitted to view the Hamas channel that broadcasts her program, but we learned via our own sources that mobile phones have been smuggled into their cells enabling them to watch the programs.”

Giving up hope on Israeli justice, the family turned to the US government.

Malki Hy"d was not the first American terror victim. Another young American woman, her parents' only child and pregnant with her first baby, was also murdered in Sbarro. The woman in a coma since the Sbarro massacre is also an American citizen. The Roth family turned to the American Department of Justice in the name of the three US terror victims, requesting that Tamimi be charged under US Federal law and brought to the US to stand trial for her crimes. American law expressly permits this.

Roth says that since they initiated this in 2012, various Justice Department lawyers, investigators and FBI agents have met with them several times.

There are people who really care there, she says, in contrast to the way we were treated by Israeli officialdom.

Meanwhile the Roths have won several battles against Tamimi, small but significant ones. Twitter shut down her account twice so she was prevented from tweeting her evil thoughts to the world ["12-Apr-17: A modest step toward justice: Twitter today suspended the account of our daughter's murderer" and "25-Jun-17: A voice of lethal, bigoted hatred is silenced... for a while"].

Last Purim's joy at having the request for extradition in Jordan's hands lasted just two days, after which it became clear that Jordan does not intend to extradite Tamimi for various evidently-bogus reasons despite an extradition treaty dating from 1995 which was used several times in order to extradite terrorists to the US ["20-Mar-17: The Hashemite Kingdom's courts have spoken: The murdering FBI fugitive will not be handed over"]. The Roths feel that Tamimi is being used as a propaganda tool vis a vis the Palestinian Arab majority in Jordan, who consider her a heroine.

Political interests that have no connection with justice at all, such as the gas deal, are what the Israeli government worries about. They need King Abdullah as a regional power and will not pressure him to make the decision to extradite, one which only he can make. No pressure and she is still free.

March 21, 2017: Lead story in Al Jazeera [here]

The ball is now in the hands of the US State Department, says Roth. "The State Department has a great deal of power, more than the president does in certain areas. There are things they could do, things they should not have done and we are still awaiting answers about certain actions that we can still not talk about. However, it is clear they are not trying to extradite at this point.”

"Until Tamimi is extradited," Frimet declares, "we will not stop what we are doing. It is of utmost importance to us. The present situation only exacerbates our endless pain."

The pain, it must be said, along with the feeling of helplessness in the face of the Israeli government's behavior, the long wait for justice from the US – all have taken their toll. Frimet suffered a heart attack a few months ago at a relatively young age.

Question: If the extradition does take place, will Tamimi spend the rest of her life in an American prison? What will that accomplish?

Frimet: That will not erase the pain of losing our daughter, of missing her constantly. But it will take away the outer layer of that pain caused by the injustice done to us. Malki is so lacking in our home, our pure and sweet natured talented daughter would be 32 today. I see her with a husband and children, spending her free time doing good deeds. She used to help people and come home with her face shining with joy, and she was really close to Haya Elisheva, her sister, and with the girls in the mainstreaming class at school. In fact, the very summer in which she was murdered, she worked as a counselor in a summer camp called Etgarim, Challenges, for disabled youngsters.

She has left such an empty hole in our hearts.

14-Jul-17: In the Jerusalem Old City shadow of one of their more sacred sites, an Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack

Image Source: Al Jazeera

There has been an Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack this morning - the Moslem Sabbath - at a location adjacent to the sacred Temple Mount (in Hebrew: Har Habayit) plaza in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Two Israeli victims are reported to be seriously injured with gunshot wounds and were rushed to Hadassah Medical Center's Mount Scopus hospital for emergency treatment.

A third is injured more lightly as a result of being hit by shrapnel and sustaining wounds to the neck, arms and hands. He is being treated at Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center.

The three are described in a Times of Israel report as men in their 30s. (Past experience says the initial guesses are often wrong.)

Police opened fire on the Arab attackers and they are all now dead.

Police believe the armed gang approached the Temple Mount plaza shortly after 7:00 am today when the Temple Mount area is generally starting to be thronged by participants in the Friday prayers. They ran [as this graphic brief video shows] toward Lions' Gate - Sha'ar Ha'arayot in Hebrew - where they opened fire on the Israelis.

They then fled towards the Temple Mount complex with Israeli police in pursuit.

Video posted in the past hour shows one of the shooters lying on the ground with Israeli police, guns drawn and surrounding him. He suddenly jumps up, takes a flying leap with a knife drawn clearly trying to wound one of the police officers. He is shot before he can complete the stabbing.

The shooters were armed with two Carlo-style (from Carl Gustav) sub-machine guns and a pistol. A knife was also found at the scene. Photos are circulating on the Hebrew-language social media [link] this morning showing three Israeli photo-identification cards, said to prove that the Arab shooters were all the holders of Israeli citizenship or Israeli residential status.

As scenes of attempted carnage go, the Temple Mount is an especially historical and sacred one. (being frank about this, it's hard to ignore how often murderous attacks of a certain kind happen in synagogues, churches, mosques, sacred places and sacred times. Is there a pattern here?)

Lion's Gate is thought to have that name according to one theory because of the image of leopards - mistaken for lions - two on the left and two on the right - embedded in the wall beside the gate itself. (Another version says they are indeed lions.) It marks the start of the 600 meter long Via Dolorosa along which Jesus walked, according to tradition, on the way to his crucifixion. Fifty years ago, it was the entry point through which Israeli paratroops passed during the 1967 Six-Day War and famously unfurled an Israeli flag above the Temple Mount.

Despite its holy and historical nature, Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks do happen in the vicinity and with growing regularity. We have posted on attacks at or very close to Lions' Gate several times in the past 15 months:

• 03-May-16: On a quiet lane in Jerusalem's Old City, a Monday night terror-by-knifing attack
• 14-Dec-16: In Jerusalem's Old City this afternoon, an Arab-on-Israeli stabbing
• 13-Mar-17: Jerusalem and the (alleged) knife-men
• 13-May-17: In Jerusalem's Old City, a Jordanian stabs an Israeli and the Jordanians are outraged (so are we, for different reasons)

Times of Israel says that in the wake of this morning's terrorist attack, Jerusalem Police chief Yoram Halevi canceled prayers for the day on the Temple Mount for the first time in decades, ordering the complex cleared and the entrances to the holy site closed. Police have also placed security checkpoints at the entrances to the Old City.

Aftermath on the Temple Mount this morning [Image Source]

How did the terrorists manage to bring weapons into the holy site? Normal procedure - perhaps to the surprise of people less familiar with how real life is lived here - is that Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount are subjected to less rigorous security checking than non-Muslim visitors, all of whom are obliged by the Israeli authorities to enter via the Mughrabi foot-bridge.

There's bound to be a high-level investigation since the implications of what happened there today are serious and broad.

Don't expect the Palestinian Arab media to be asking the serious questions. They're still totally stuck in their victim-centric reporting-narrative style - the sort of reporting (referring to the Fatah-controlled and scandalous Ma'an News Agency) that produces this opening line today:

Three Palestinians and two Israeli police officers were killed during an armed confrontation in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem early on Friday morning... ["3 Palestinian citizens of Israel, 2 police officers killed in Jerusalem shooting", Ma'an, today]

Armed confrontation?!

Al Jazeerah's man on the spot offers this insightful gem:

"It is reportedly the first time in years that the compound would be closed for prayers on Friday. Of course this has the potential to increase tensions among the about 10,000 Palestinians who normally pray here on Fridays," Fawcett said. ["Jerusalem: Palestinians killed after 'shooting attack'",  Al Jazeera, today]

Tensions?! The sub-machine guns and the knife don't raise the tensions. The critically injured Israelis don't raise the tensions. The cynical abuse of a site they declare to be holy doesn't raise the tensions. The utter silence of the Muslim religious leadership and their systematic, ongoing failure to condemn Arab-on-Israeli terrorist attacks don't raise the tensions.

But decisions by responsible law-and-order authorities, conditioned by long experience to know the nature of the Palestinian Arab mobs and the harm that generally follows (mainly in their own settlements and to their own children) their irresponsible violence - they raise the tensions.

Lethal journalism is what it's called.

UPDATE 12:30 pm Friday July 14, 2017:
Tragically, the two seriously injured Israelis shot by a gang of armed Arab attackers this morning have died of their wounds [Israel National News]. Times of Israel identifies them as two police officers, both from Israel's Druze community: Haiel Sitawe, 30, from Maghar, a mostly Druze and Arab city in northern Israel, who signed up with the Border Guard as part of his mandatory national service in 2012 and served in the unit responsible for securing the Temple Mount ever since; and Kamil Shnaan, 22, from Hurfeish, an almost entirely-Druze village also in Israel's north. Sitawe is survived by a wife, Irin, and a three-week-old son, as well as parents and three brothers. Shnaan was to celebrate his engagement party to his girlfriend in a week. He leaves behind parents, a brother and three sisters. His father, Shachiv Shnaan, served for a time as Knesset member representing, first the Labor party, and later Ehud Barak's short-lived Independence party.

The three dead attackers are all from the Israeli Arab town of Umm al-Fahm, with a population of more than 50,000 Israel's third-largest Arab community and a center of power for Israel's Islamic Movement whose notorious so-called Northern Branch headed by Raed Sallah was outlawed by Israel in 2016 because of its ties to Hamas and the Moslem Brotherhood. The dead gunman are all called Muhammad Jabarin and all are plainly from the same clan: Muhammad Ahmed Muhammad Jabarin, 29; Muhammad Hamad Abdel Latif Jabarin, 19; and Muhammad Ahmed Mafdal Jabarin, 19. The Jabarin clan's home base is Musherifa, a village in the vicinity of Um-al-Fahm.

UPDATE 3:00 pm Friday July 14, 2017
An updated version of the Ma'an news report on the terror attack calls the two proudly-patriotic Israeli Druze police officers who were the victims of the shooting attack this morning "Palestinian citizens of Israel" whose lives ended "during an armed confrontation":

Source

We fear the intention of the Ma'an editorial spinmeisters was not to bring comfort to the families of the fallen Druze police men.

In similar black-is-white fashion, the savages of Hamas and Islamic Jihad have fulsomely praised today's shooting attack with their own public statements. Hamas called the brazen bloodshed at a sacred site "heroic" and a ''natural consequence of a series of crimes''. Not to be outdone in the chase for outlandish similes, Islamic Jihad said the shootings were ''demonstrations of courage by our people against occupying forces that must now beware to cross a red line''.

Whether or not the Israeli side is going to be more cautious about crossing an imaginary Islamist line in the coming days, what's sadly clear (again) is that on a day in which five lives, all of them Arab, were lost in pointless Jerusalem violence, the fat-cats in Gaza are congratulating themselves as they pump the heads of their society's children with self-destructive notions of honor, courage and dying while killing the "occupiers" in the occupiers's own capital city.