27-Dec-22: Suspect held in November's twin Jerusalem Arab-on-Israeli bombings

The two Israelis murdered in the twin bombing attacks last month

The authorities here cleared for publication earlier today that a suspect in the November 23, 2022 twin-bombings in Jerusalem ["23-Nov-22: In Jerusalem, twin bomb blasts put terror in the spotlight again"] has been in the hands of Israeli law enforcement officials for a month. He was detained by Israeli security forces six days after those lethal attacks on innocent commuters standing at bus-stops.

The news came in the form of a statement issued jointly by Israel Police and the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service.

According to one report, ["Israel announces arrest last month of Jerusalem bombing suspect", i24NEWS, today], the suspected bomber is a mechanical engineer, Aslam Faroh, 26, described as "an Israeli resident who was living in Kafr 'Aqab in east Jerusalem and Ramallah in the West Bank." (His name is spelled in different ways in English reports.)

He had fled the scene of the morning rush-hour attacks on a motorbike, and was hiding out in a cave in the Judean desert. A search there turned up an additional explosive device secreted in the cave.

The theory is he acted alone "after planning the attack for an extended period of time."

A statement naming him Froukh and attributed to the Shin Bet says the attacker acted alone "out of Salafi-jihadi ideology identified with the Islamic State (ISIS) terror organization" and that he used how-to guides viewable on the Internet to learn to make the bombs used in the attack.

A chilling postscript reports something we had not known earlier;

"Israeli police also revealed that a third explosive device had been found at the bus stop where the first bombing occurred. A mechanical failure prevented its detonation, which had been timed to take place thirty minutes after the initial explosion."

A delayed explosion would indicate that the bomber intended to inflict injuries and death on rescue workers and police at the scene.

Two Israelis were killed in the bombings. Aryeh Shechopek, a 16-year-old student, died at the scene of the earlier of the two explosions at a bustling bus stop (the "trampiada") at the entrance to Jerusalem on Highway One. A second victim, Tadasa Tashume Ben Ma'ada, 50, died three days later in hospital from injuries suffered in the same attack. Some twenty other people suffered injuries.

A Times of Israel report ["Arab Israeli with Islamic State ties arrested for bombings at Jerusalem bus stops"], where his name is rendered as Eslam Froukh, says

"Security forces located the site [near Ramallah] where Froukh allegedly tested his explosive devices. The Shin Bet said troops seized explosive materials, a makeshift sub-machine gun and a primed bomb similar to the ones used in the Jerusalem attack. The agency said it suspected Froukh planned to commit another attack using the explosive device and the weapon. Several other suspects were arrested in the days following the bombing, but were all released. Prosecutors are expected to file an indictment against Froukh in the coming days, which will include murder and other terror charges."

Froukh was reportedly unknown to security authorities until now. 

His posts on social media (quoted here) show that his engineering studies were done at the well-regarded Azrieli College of Engineering in Jerusalem. Azrieli's comprehensive website includes an Arabic language edition reflecting its engagement with Arab students. A 2017 article ("Fulfilling Arab Startup Dreams in Jerusalem") sheds light on Azrieli's efforts to bring young Arab professionals into Israel's start-up culture.

ISIS connection?

An analysis published by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) gives some context to the claim that this terrorist was aligned with the jihadists of the Islamic State. Though Israel has never been the site of much ISIS activity, its terrorists have laid claim to a handful of attacks over the years. 

Two terror attacks in late March 2022 were perpetrated by ISIS supporters. An attack involving a car-ramming and stabbings in Beer Sheba, killing four Israeli civilians and was perpetrated by Muhammad Abu Al-Qi'an who had been in prison for trying to join ISIS in Syria. A shooting in the Israeli city of Hadera killed two border guards and injured twelve Israelis and was carried out by cousins Ayman and Ibrahim Ighbariyeh, the latter of whom had also tried to travel to Syria to join ISIS. ISIS sources threatened in the wake of these killings that "the unbelieving Jews should know that our promises [to attack them] will reach them sooner or later, Allah willing."[7]

MEMRI suggested in May 2022 that ISIS has gone through a shift in focus

and now sees masterminding attacks against Israel as a greater priority than it previously did. However, it is more likely that the perpetrators of these recent attacks acted on their own and that ISIS leadership is not facilitating operations against Israel, other than inciting to them periodically, generally when tensions are high between Israel and Palestinian factions. Thus, it seems probable that ISIS... attacks against Israel will remain at a minimum. At the same time, there are still ISIS supporters living in Israel and the Palestinian territories, who may decide, under the influence of ISIS propaganda, to instigate attacks in the name of the jihadi organization, which views Israelis and Jews as enemies whom it is meritorious to target, provided that the attack is carried out for the sake of Allah and not out of nationalistic motives. [Quoted from The Evolution Of Islamic State (ISIS) Views On Attacking The State Of Israel, May 20, 2022]

16-Mar-20: Israeli Arab mother is arrested; allegedly posed as welfare worker while serving Hamas

Protestors demanding the suspect's release [Image Source]

A news report published yesterday ["Shin Bet says it nabbed Arab Israeli Hamas agent who posed as aid worker", Jacob Magid in Times of Israel, March 15, 2020] raises the case of an Israeli Arab woman in her early thirties now facing serious criminal and terrorism charges.

A resident of the Israeli town of Ar’ara and a mother of two young children, the woman was arrested last month. Ar'ara is a town in the Wadi Ara region of northern Israel, south of Umm al-Fahm and just north-west of the Green Line. Israelis know the area, inhabited mainly by Arabs, as "the Triangle". In 2018, Ar'ara's population was about 25,000.

The suspect's name and other details had remained confidential until yesterday (Sunday) and are now public. Described in parts of the Arab media (here for instance) as a "Palestinian holding Israeli citizenship", she is charged with offences connected with "scamming aid organizations she worked for as well as civilians who donated money to the needy population in Gaza" [Ynet].

Reports name the woman as Aya Khatib, 31. Ynet says she was arrested two months ago in "a special operation" and that she admitted under interogation to taking part in "terrorist activity against Israeli targets".

As reported by Times of Israel, the charges against her are based on the allegation that she was recruited by a pair of Hamas terrorists active in Hamas’ so-called “military” wing, the Izzadin al-Qassam Brigade and that she used her position as a humanitarian worker to divert money and supplies intended for the needy in Gaza. Donors were  evidently told the funds were going to patients claimed to be suffering from cancer.

She is charged as well with providing field intelligence to the terrorists of Hamas including details about the movements of IDF forces during what the Shin Bet, which carried out the investigation leading to her apprehension, called "one of the fighting rounds with the Gaza Strip”.

This is said to be Aya Khatib

The Jerusalem Post names them as Muhammed Pilpel, 29 from Beit Lahiya, and Mahmoud Halua, 32, from Jabaliya. Other news reports give their names as Mohammed Filfel and Mahmoud Halawa.

Through the two Hamas men, according to Israel's Shin Bet, she is said to have transferred hundreds of thousands of shekels to the Hamas terrorists

“while scamming aid organizations and innocent civilians who donated funds with the aim of reaching patients and the needy”

in the Gaza Strip.

The Jerusalem Post report says an indictment is expected to be filed against Khatib in the Acre Magistrate’s Court in the next few days.

Acccording to the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat news site ("the world’s premier pan-Arab daily newspaper, printed simultaneously each day on four continents in 14 cities"):

On Sunday, the Haifa District Court extended Khatib’s detention period until next Wednesday, on charges of cooperation and intelligence with al-Qassam brigades. The Israeli Public Prosecution submitted Monday the prosecutor's statement to the court. Khatib's lawyer said she denies the charges attributed to her.
Khatib has complained about the conditions of her arrest before the court, which ordered that this matter be examined, her lawyer noted. The court also allowed her two children to meet her.
Khatib has been active on her Facebook page to collect donations for patients, particularly children from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who are receiving treatments in Israeli hospitals. She also collected donations for male and female university students whose economic conditions prevented them from paying their university fees.

It's a news item worth keeping in mind the next time demands are made - as they are regularly and often - for Israel to free Palestinian Arab female prisoners.

29-Aug-18: Hamas and its women take center-stage again in Hevron

Image Source

The uncovering of a significant Hamas terror cell based in the Hevron area, and the central role in it taken by females, was cleared for publication in a Shin Bet announcement yesterday (Tuesday). Ynet says initial indictments have been filed in the Judea Military Court.

Some of the key disclosures:

• A special focus on women - dozens of them from the Hevron area are reported to have been recruited into Hamas via this initiative.
• Cell leaders received "money, messages, and instructions" from Hamas terror leaders based outside Israel - including (according to Haaretz) Haroun Nasser Adin, another of several Shalit Deal beneficiaries now operating from Turkey. (See "29-Jan-18: Freeing unrepentant terrorists and the horrors it has brought" for some commentary on the scale of the ongoing Shalit Deal catastrophe.)
• The cell, made up of dozens of Palestinian Arabs, "promoted" Hamas activity in the area including recruiting new members for its work; coordinating via mosques; gathering intelligence; engaging in incitement via sermons and the social media; giving support to prisoners' families; transferring messages and instructions; moving funds around to finance terror.
• An attempt, in the words of an Israel National News report, "to take control of the Hevron municipality and various charities in the city".
• The establishment of a local committee to be the Hevron operational arm of Hamas' headquarters. 

That committee is said to be headed by a woman named Dina al-Karmi. Who is she?

Ynet gives her name as Dina al-Said. An Arab source calls her Donya Sa'id and fleshes out the description in this nauseatingly disingenuous way: "the wife a Palestinian man who was killed by the army several years ago". An unfortunate accident?

In fact, her late and not-lamented husband Nashat al-Karmi was a terrorist who (in the rather laconic words of last night's Jerusalem Post report - which to be fair may merely be echoing what the Shin Bet said) "carried out an attack in 2010 in which four Israeli civilians were killed". 

Carried out an attack? As it happens, we wrote at the time about that specific savagery:

Reuters reports today that the Hamas terrorist organization has claimed full reponsibility for yesterday's ambush and execution of four Israeli civilians. It quotes a Hamas statement saying it "announces its full responsibility for the heroic operation in Hebron". This, in Hamas terms, was indeed a heroic operation, a classic of its kind. It was directed at a carload of two men, two women. No Israeli soldiers in the vicinity. No strategic goal other than terrorism for its own sake. The shooters, dressed in civilian clothing, fled into the night. Heroism, pure and simple. Heroism of the kind  that the world has come to know and expect from exponents of Islamicism in its various jihadist flavours. A little reported aspect of the Hamas heroism: one of the rescue service volunteers who arrived on the scene (according to the Jerusalem Post) broke down in tears on viewing the bodies. His colleagues were surprised - this is not a new experience in their line of work. Then they heard him crying out: "That's my wife!' That's my wife!' and indeed his wife is one of the four victims. Their names again (because these are human beings): Yitzhak and Tali Ames (who leave six orphans), Cochava Even Haim, and Avishai Schindler... ["1-Sep-10: Real people, real terror"]

Nashat al-Karmi's career in barbarism came to an abrupt end a couple of weeks after the murders he committed eight years ago. Here's one account of the circumstances:

Israeli forces in the West Bank have shot dead two Hamas militants they say were responsible for the killings of four Israelis last month, according to a senior Palestinian security official... Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak said in a statement that the operation was "a quick response to the murder of the four Israelis"... The senior Palestinian security official said Nashat al-Karmi and Mamoun al-Natshi were killed in an early morning raid and had been identified by family members. Hamas media later confirmed the killings. The official said the two belonged to Islamist Hamas and were behind the killing of four Israelis on the eve of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks that began last month. Hamas, which controls the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, opposes the talks. ["Two shot dead in Hebron", The Irish Times, October 8, 2010]

Image Source

So is this clear? Four innocent Israelis were murdered on an Israeli highway because Hamas opposes peace talks that were getting underway the following day.

The names of the leaders of this newly-uncovered 2018 Hevron cell - the one where the loathsome al-Karmi's widow is a dominant figure - are given as Nizar Shehadeh and Faras Abu Sharh.

It's troubling, and frankly hard to understand, why almost no background details about the two men are given in any of the published reports.

The Shin Bet report rather laconically calls them "senior and well-known Hamas terrorists who had served prison terms several times in the past for their terrorist activity."

We went looking for background. We found that someone with Shehadeh's name was a figure in this 2004 BBC report:

"Israeli radio said troops in Hebron killed two men in a gun battle which broke out after they surrounded a militant hideout and dynamited it... Correspondents identified the two dead in Hebron as members of the Hamas militant organisation. Witnesses said one of them was a local Hamas chief called Murad Qawasmeh. The two-storey house they were hiding in belonged to Nizar Shehadeh, witnesses said, who was jailed by Israel six months ago for having links to a local charity that supported Hamas." ["Israelis kill three Palestinians", BBC News, November 25, 2004]

From the Sheikh Firas Abu Sharkh sermon video [here]

As for Faras Abu Sharh, that name didn't produce much so we cast our net a little wider than that specific Shin Bet spelling. (English isn't their first language.)

A "Firas Abu Sharkh", described as director of the Hebron municipality's library at the time, is named in a Hamas website report from February 2008, more than a decade ago. Turns out he had been taken into custody by the Israeli military - for no reason at all, naturally.

Then he was back as the director of the Hevron municipal library when this (Arabic) March 2017 report appeared.

He turns up in a new Palestinow report (in English) from August 6, 2018 where he is the only one of 14 Palestinian Arabs arrestees to be labeled "former political prisoner" and said to be from Hevron. We think he's the ring-leader mentioned by the Shin Bet.

A Google search of the Arabic version of his name leads to many hits including this Arabic news report from February 2009 where he's said to be a Hevron-area preacher known to many as Abu Wael and who "has been in the cells of the gangs of the security services for six months" - again, for no reason at all.

There's also a YouTube clip of Sheikh Abu Sharkh delivering a sermon in a Hevron mosque on June 13, 2014. [We have asked an Arabic-speaking friend to say what this angry-sounding man is addressing. Stand by.]

Hevron is nominally under the control of the Palestinian Authority which is essentially at war with Hamas. Tayseer Abu Sneineh, a convicted murderer and a member of Fatah (the largest faction in the PA) became mayor of Hebron in the elections of May 2017 ["Palestinian terrorist in killing of 6 Jews elected Hebron mayor | Tayseer Abu Shneineh to head biggest West Bank city", Times of Israel, May 14, 2017]. Fatah took 7 of the city's 15 seats but that was enough. 

Despite this, as the New York Times already pointed out in 2009 ["In Fatah-Governed West Bank, Solidarity With Hamas"], a complicated internal struggle goes on there:

Fatah leaders are growing deeply worried over popular reaction and support for its rival, Hamas, to the point of crushing recent demonstrations...  In a series of interviews, people here said they were enraged by the photographs and television images of the Palestinian dead in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which they consider part of themselves. They said that support for Hamas would grow as this conflict went on, and that they were intimidated by the Palestinian security forces of Mr. Abbas..."

In a formal statement, the Shin Bet said yesterday: 

"The exposure of the infrastructure proves once again that the Hamas headquarters in the Gaza Strip and abroad are directing Hamas activities in Judea and Samaria, through any means at their disposal, including through the use of women..."

The first woman terrorist in the service of Hamas was Ahlam Tamimi who murdered our daughter Malki and many other innocents in the bombing attack on the Jerusalem Sbarro pizzeria in 2001. The mutual embrace - females and Islamist savagery - has grown broader and tighter since then:

Women make good terrorists. They offer a strategic advantage in conducting terrorist attacks; as women do not conform to traditional security profiles, they typically arouse less suspicion, and their actions often garner more international media attention... [W]omen have traditionally been seen as the victims of violence, whether domestic or political. However, the historical record makes it clear that women have not just been the passive victims of terrorism, but also have played an active role. In Muslim history, although women took part in battles at the time of the Prophet Mohammed, their participation was gradually restricted, as women's roles became consigned to the private sphere... This wave of violence has not only seen women as active participants, but as proactive participants in terrorism. As the terrorist attacks continue, women will continue to play an active role in carrying out attacks, as well as mobilizing public support for further violence. ["Women’s Liberation: Violence and Palestinian Women in the Third Intifada", Haaretz, October 27, 2015]

Those calls (here for instance, and here and here and here and all over the social media) from widely-varied Arab sources, and not only Arab, for Israel to free the females being held in its prisons for terror offences come from a deep and cynical appreciation of the strategic value of women's roles in jihad. It's a fatal mistake for us to fall victim to their blandishments.

As for the gang, we think there are some more disclosures not yet made.

18-Jun-18: Large Hamas-aligned terror-attack-cell is busted in Nablus

Nablus [Image Source]

Uncommonly big by the standards of previous terror gang arrests, the discovery and busting of a highly active Hamas cell, operational since October 2017, was revealed yesterday (Sunday) after being suppressed since April by a court-imposed gag order.

The members of the gang had plans to carry out mass-scale bombings in Israel's major population centers.

Times of Israel reports: 

Israeli forces uncovered a large and highly active Hamas terror cell operating out of the Palestinian city of Nablus earlier this year that was allegedly planning to conduct a number of bombings and shooting attacks in Israel... The arrest of the more than 20 suspected cell members made this one of the largest busts by the Shin Bet in recent years... “In recent months, the Shin Bet, Israel Defense Forces and Israel Police uncovered a Hamas terror cell, extraordinary in its size and level of activity, which operated in the Nablus area... During the suspects’ interrogations by the Shin Bet, it was determined that the cell planned to carry out terrorist bombings in central cities in Israel and the northern West Bank, including a bombing in Tel Aviv, a suicide bombing and an explosive attack in Jerusalem, a bombing in the Itamar settlement and shooting attacks in the Samaria region,” the [Shin Bet] security service said... [It] arrested more than 20 suspected members of the Hamas cell in late April, including its two leaders: Mutassem Muhammad Salem, 35, and Fares Kamil Zebidi, 33. ["Shin Bet: Israel busted large Hamas cell planning Jerusalem, Tel Aviv bombings", Times of Israel, June 17, 2018]

Nablus, called Shechem in Hebrew and mentioned numerous times in Scripture, is about 50 km north of Jerusalem and has a mainly-Moslem population today of about 126,500. It's the second largest Palestinian Arab city in the area they call the West Bank.

Beyond being affiliated with Hamas, the terror cell, via its leader Salem, is thought to have had connections with the Syria-based terrorists Tahrir al-Sham, previously known as the Nusra Front.

The two indictments that were filed in the military court on Sunday are only the first in this bust. Others are expected to be filed in the coming days, with the expectation of more revelations. 

Most Israelis don't need much convincing to know that terrorist desires are deeply implanted and active in the Palestinian Arab communities bordering Israel's centers of population. Outside Israel, as Sunday's revelations show, there is far less awareness: so far at least, the scale of non-Israeli media interest in reporting the Nablus bust has been trivial-to-none.

04-Apr-18: In the war against the Gazan terrorists, the sea and "fisherman" have new significance

Israeli security video of naval forces seizing the attack ship

Think for a moment of all the news reports over the years of honest, hard-working, innocent-as-hell Gazan Palestinian Arab fishermen arrested for no reason whatsoever by mean Israeli naval forces.

The IDF and Israel's security establishment in general devotes massive resources to field intelligence. Israel's critics tend to relate to that sort of claim with cynicism, just because. That will probably continue today but for Israelis today brings some very disturbing news that, thankfully, includes something a positive outcome.

A Gazan Palestinian Arab plot to attack an Israeli naval vessel by missile, to then seize the survivors and do bad things to them or with them, was revealed today. It has ended well, at least so far. Here's how one report ["Shin Bet, IDF thwart Islamic Jihad attack on navy boats off Gaza coast", Times of Israel, April 4, 2018] tells it.

Security forces arrested a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group off the Gaza coast suspected of planning to sink an Israeli naval patrol boat and kidnap any survivors last month, Israel revealed on Wednesday. The plan was to use three boats to lure in a navy ship, fire a missile at it and then seize the wounded and slain soldiers, according to a joint statement by the Shin Bet security service and Israel Defense Forces. This plot was foiled on the night of March 12, when the navy’s 916th Patrol Squadron stopped a Palestinian boat that had left the designated Gaza fishing zone.

The video clip embedded above shows the nighttime seizure with well-armed IDF naval special forces boarding the fishing boat and arresting the 10 on board. The boat was impounded in Ashdod's sea-port.

It's likely that more information will emerge in days to come:

The crew was brought into Israeli custody for questioning, including Amin Saadi Muhammad Jumma’a, 24, a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad who told interrogators that he had received instructions from his commanders to prepare to carry out the attack on Israeli Navy ships... Jumma’a, a resident of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, told interrogators that the plan was for one boat to act as a diversion by leaving the fishing zone so that a navy ship would approach it...  “A second boat would attack the ship, firing a Kornet (anti-tank) missile at it, with the intention of causing injury and death to the soldiers on board,” the statement said. A third boat would then arrive on the scene and take the wounded soldiers hostage and steal the bodies of those killed, the security forces said.

Jumma’a (some reports spell his name as Juma) was indicted in a Beer Sheba court today (Wednesday) on multiple charges including planning to conduct a terror attack, acquiring weapons and belonging to a terrorist organization. The charge sheet says he was recruited into Islamic Jihad in 2016 and a year later agreed - after being promised $5,000 - to conduct the attack.

Of the ten men arrested, seven were released after interrogation by the Shin Bet. Two others are believed to be part of the plot and were not freed. The tenth is Jumma'a who is not going anywhere for now.

Over at Haaretz ["Israel Indicts Gaza Resident for Plot to Attack Navy Vessel and Abduct Troops", today] they say that

Intelligence services believe the plot reflects a desire by terrorist organizations in Gaza to shift their attention to sea in light of Israel's successes against the threat of underground tunnels. The military has deployed a number of methods meant to counteract this growing threat, and is preparing for the possibility that these groups may attempt to target Israel's offshore gas fields. 

In an Associated Press interview with a spokesperson for Islamic Jihad, Daoud Shehab, he "had no information about the Israeli announcement" but offered the not-so-startling insight that PIJ terrorists are involved in "open confrontation" with Israel:

"It's also our right to look for suitable ways to force Israel to release Palestinian prisoners," he added.

And Israel's right to do everything necessary to thwart them.

01-Jan-18: Another reason we call it the catastrophic Shalit Deal

Sasson Nuriel, tortured and murdered in 2005 by Hamas
terrorists. One of them is now in Israeli custody,
suspected of having launched a
post-Shalit-Deal terror gang that was intercepted by Israel
in November. [Image Source: AP]

Another set of revelations from Israel's security establishment points today to yet another of the 1,027 beneficiaries of the 2011 Shalit Deal having been at the center of Arab-on-Israeli terror. This time, the terrorism was thwarted in time.

Israel National News reports ["Terrorist freed in 'Shalit deal' planned terror attack", January 1, 2018] that the leader of a recently captured gang of 17 Hamas terrorists had been in an Israeli prison up until October 2011 after having been convicted of involvement in the kidnapping and murder of an Israeli, Sasson Nuriel, in 2005. (We started this blog about a year after that.)

A moment about the victim: Sasson Nuriel manufactured candies in the Mishor Adumim industrial zone on Jerusalem's eastern edge until his business got into financial difficulties. Needing to support a wife and three children, he closed the company and went to work for Maya, a spice manufacturer with premises in the same industrial park. On September 21, 2005, he left the factory to go out and buy chocolate. When he failed to return, his family called the police. Through an intelligence lead, they learned he had been kidnapped by a Hamas terror cell.

Shalit Deal: Armed Hamas terrorists watch as a bus carrying freshly-released
Palestinian Arab prisoners arrives at Rafah Crossing, southern
Gaza Strip, October 18, 2011 [Image Source: Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash 90]

It eventually emerged that its members included two Palestinian Arabs who had worked for Nuriel in his candy business. On behalf of Hamas, they had lured him to a-Ram, an Arab village on Jerusalem's north side, by making up a story. A BBC report at the time said

Palestinian militant group Hamas has released a video of a bound and blindfolded Israeli businessman it says it kidnapped and later killed. The body of 51-year-old Sasson Nuriel, who vanished last week, was found near Ramallah in the West Bank on Monday. Hamas said it had planned to trade him for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, but decided to kill him after Israel began raids in the West Bank.

Israeli sources said his abductors brought Nuriel at gunpoint to Beitunia, a village under PA control and west of Ramallah. There they stabbed him to death, throwing his body into a garbage dump before claiming responsibility in Hamas' name. The dead man was 51.

Abdallah Arar, the man behind the Hamas 

cell busted six weeks ago by the Shin Bet,
and another Shalit Deal graduate 

[Image Source]

This week's revelation via a Shabak (Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet) media release [reported here] is that the key person behind the Hamas terror cell discovered during November 2017 is Abdallah Arar. He had been part of that Hamas gang that murdered Sasson Nuriel in 2005. For the record, the Jerusalem Post says today that the gang consisted of five members.

Arar was deported to the Gaza Strip in the 2011 Shalit Deal. (Our daughter's murderer, Ahlam Tamimi, walked free in the same transaction.) Like so many other terrorists who were released at that time, he promptly went back to doing more terror.

The investigation into the cell and Arar's involvement is "currently being handled by the military prosecution, which is examining the investigation's findings prior to filing an indictment", according to the INN report.

04-Dec-17: After Thursday night's murder-by-stabbing, two arrests - and a transplant

The murder victim, aged 19

A young Israeli man, barely out of high school and serving in his country's military so so many of his peers, was murdered on Thursday night around 9:30 pm outside the shopping mall in Arad, a desert city of about 25,000 inhabitants. (As out of the way as it is, Arad is where Israel's most celebrated novelist, Amos Oz, lives.) He was evidently heading home for the weekend.

His name is Sgt. Ron Yitzhak Kokia and he was 19. He served in the Nahal Brigade, an infantry unit whose base is located near Arad. The funeral took place on Sunday.

It was announced today (Monday) that two men are being held in connection with the killing. Haaretz says

Two Israeli Bedouins were arrested Monday for their role in the lethal stabbing of an Israeli soldier in what Israeli officials say was terror attack in southern Israel last week... The soldier was waiting at a bus station adjacent to a local mall at the time of the incident. The Shin Bet security service said Monday that the assessment is that it was a terror attack and the two had planned the stabbing in advance. They are not affiliated with any group and were not known to have ties to terrorist groups or ideologies.

Ron Kokia is brought to burial in the Kiryat Shaul military cemetery
in the suburbs of Tel Aviv [Image Source]

Times of Israel adds:

The assailants stole the soldier’s gun and fled the scene, prompting a widespread manhunt across southern Israel. Two suspects from southern Israel were arrested a day later, but the information was not immediately cleared for publication. On Monday, that gag order was partially removed. According to the Shin Bet, one of the suspects admitted during an interrogation to murdering Kokia. “He even led Shin Bet investigators to retrieve the soldier’s gun,” the service said in a statement. Beyond saying that the stabbing had a “nationalistic motive,” the Shin Bet would not comment on a specific trigger for the attack. Suspects often cite a recent event or incident involving a family member or friend when confessing to a terror charge. “The interrogation of the suspects is ongoing,” the Shin Bet said... The soldier was waiting for a ride near a mall in the southern city at approximately 9:30 p.m. when he was attacked. When medics arrived at the scene, they found him in critical condition, unconscious and without a pulse, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service... His family donated his organs, Army Radio reported.

It's worth pausing for a moment to absorb that last point. In another place, Ron's father Boaz Kukia is quoted saying: "Our whole family has an ADI donation card [indicating willingness to have organs removed for transplanting into others after the donor's death] and saving lives is a supreme value". The nobleness of spirit that allows people to speak that way as they bury a child is a wondrous thing.
 

External view of Arad's shopping mall [Image Source]

And Associated Press (via the New York Times) gives this context:

The Shin Bet would not identify them [the men who were arrested] Monday, but Israeli media reported they were likely Arab Bedouins from the southern Negev desert... Since September 2015, Palestinians have killed more than 50 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British tourist in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks. 

There's more about how Israel's ADI card system works here. It's operated by Israel's National Transplant Center, established by the Ministry of Health in 1994 to be the authorized and independent body for managing and coordinating organ donation and transplantation in Israel. The ADI website says more than a thousand adults and children and adults in Israel currently need a transplant; some 700 are waiting for a kidney transplant, about 150 for a liver transplant, about 70 for a lung transplant, about 120 for a heart transplant:

Only 250 people on the waiting list will have the chance of a transplant in the course of the next year and about 100 will die waiting. And each year, hundreds of new patients join the waiting list.

We saw a report that the murdered young man's corneas have already been given to a transplant recipient.

26-Sep-17: At Har Adar's entrance, an Arab-on-Israeli shooter with problems and a solution

The aftermath of today's killings outside Har Adar [Image Source: AFP]

Around 7:15 this morning (Tuesday), at the entrance to the north Jerusalem suburban community of Har Adar, a gunman - part of a milling crowd of Palestinian Arab laborers waiting to be allowed through the security check to start their day's work - opened fire on the Border Guard men at the barrier.

Three were killed, a fourth was critically injured and is fighting for his life at this hour in a Jerusalem hospital. The gunman was shot dead.

Times of Israel names the three murdered young Israeli men:

• Border Guard staff sergeant Solomon Gavriyah, 20, from Be’er Yaakov. He did his mandatory national service with the Border Guard and then continued with them, doing police work in the Jerusalem seam area along the 1947 armistice line that outsiders often refer to misleadingly as a border. He was lightly injured in the hand during a terror stabbing in the area a year ago. His funeral is now set for 5 pm today in Be’er Yaakov's military cemetery. His parents, two sisters and a brother survive him.
• Civilian security guard Youssef Ottman, 25, from the nearby Israel Arab town of Abu Ghosh. He will be buried there later today. Ottman is described as “a quiet guy who got along with everyone”, and the son of an established and successful family. He is survived by parents and siblings, including a sister who was married last week.
• Civilian security guard Or Arish, 25, from the Har Adar community itself. His funeral is at 4:30 this afternoon at Jerusalem's main cemetery in  Givat Shaul.

The fourth victim, not yet publicly named, is the community security officer for Har Adar, a man of 33. He underwent emergency surgery at Hadassah Medical Center hospital in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem from where his condition is described as stable and moderate.

Today's murdered Israelis (left to right): Arish, Gvariyah, Ottman
[Image Source]

The terrorist is identified [here] as Nimer Mahmoud Ahmad Jamal, a laborer with a history of family violence, from nearby Bayt Surik, an Arab village of about 4,000 residents. (Here's something we wrote some months ago about one of his nearby neighbours: "14-Dec-16: In Jerusalem's Old City this afternoon, an Arab-on-Israeli stabbing").

The troubles in his private life notwithstanding, the Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security service, says he had no known background in terrorist activities. A father of four, he held a legal work permit making him one of few Palestinian Arabs holding such privileges to have committed a terror attack in recent years.

In its report on the terrorist killings, the New York Times today says the killer was well known in Har Adar. He was expected at the home of a member of the local council this morning where he had some work to do - cleaning work, according to Israel National News. NYT quotes residents of Har Adar telling Israel’s Galei Zahal Army Radio this morning that the attacker had had "personal problems", with his wife recently leaving him and going off to Jordan. Other sources mention she left the children behind with him. There's no word yet on where they are or who is caring for them. It clearly won't be their father.

One Har Adar resident quoted by Israel National News says

the terrorist was one of many PA workers who enter the town for work on a regular basis. “Every day, dozens of workers enter the community through the back gate. Some work inside the community in construction and housework for families, and others work on the outskirts. They undergo an inspection and body search, and there are good relations between the residents of Har Adar and the workers,” she said. “We know the terrorist, he worked as a cleaner at several houses in the community,” she added. “It’s scary to think what would have happened if he had succeeded in passing the checkpoint and gotten to the school that is several meters away, or to one of the houses nearby.”

The killer himself let those closest to him know what was coming:

In his final message to his wife, which was released after the attack by the Israeli army, Jamal, who had worked for years as a house cleaner in Har Adar, mourned her departure and said he had been a terrible husband to her. “When you wake up in the morning, share this message on my page. Let your conscience rest. You were a good wife, Umm Baha [mother of Baha], and a compassionate mother and I was the one who behaved badly,” he wrote... “I say this in full awareness: my wife had nothing to do with what will happen tomorrow.” ["Wife of Har Adar terrorist left him weeks before shooting", Times of Israel, September 26, 2017]

Though we can speculate, we don't really know what the dead shooter's problems were. But if all or some of them were economic, he and the loathsome PA leadership under president-for-life Mahmoud Abbas have just solved them. 

As Palestinian Media Watch observes in a bulletin a few hours ago and as we have written extensively (click "Rewards for Terror" to view dozens of our posts on this painful subject), the Palestinian Authority pays salaries to terrorists and to families of dead attackers - "martyrs" in their terminology - as part of an incentive scheme that ensures the blood keeps flowing.

According to PA regulations, the murderer's family will immediately receive a 6,000 shekel grant and an additional 2,600 shekels each month for life, based on the following formula:  

• 1,400 shekels each month - base allowance;
• 400 shekels additional each month for each wife;
• 200 shekels additional each month for each child.

This terrorist had one wife and four children so his family will receive 2,600 shekel every month for life.

The PA is perpetually broke, and always will be as long as there are foreign aid providers ready to respond to their malevolent pan-handling. The notorious PA Rewards for Terror scheme can only continue because of the willingness of the providers of foreign aid to pretend not to know about the payments scheme and its enabling role in the despicable culture of death the Abbas regime, and Arafat before him, stitched together to ensure the perpetuation of their people's misery and a steady stream of martyrs' funerals.

03-Aug-17: Two Shalit Deal beneficiaries are at the heart of a just-busted Hamas terror-financing operation

Shalit Deal terrorists being sent to their ill-gotten freedom, October 2011

How much damage did Israel do to itself by engaging with the terrorist thugs of Hamas in the 2011 Gilad Shalit transaction?

Whatever the answer, the toll is not static. It continues to grow and it includes innocent people murdered by terrorists who had murdered before they were released in the Shalit Deal and then murdered again once they were freed.

As we have said and written on numerous occasions since the catastrophic transaction was put together, we will regret the Shalit Deal for generations.

Here's today's update.

Israel announced that its Shin Bet security service  discovered and unraveled what Times of Israel describes as

a complex Hamas money laundering operation that brought nearly three quarters of a million shekels into the terrorist group’s coffers... Through this plot, which began in early 2016, the group managed to transfer approximately $200,000 (NIS 720,000) into its Hebron offices from Turkey, with help from Gaza, in order to fund terrorist activities... In light of Israeli sanctions on the group, Hamas cannot freely move money in and out of the country. 

Five members of Hamas, all of them residing in Judea and Samaria in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, have been arrested. Two other suspects living in Turkey and the Gaza Strip are wanted but still, as far as we know, free.

The names we know include two men whose ability to engage in the funding of jihadist terror was handed to them as a gift when they were freed by Israel in that notorious 2011 deal with Hamas.

• The head of the operation is said to be Muhammad Maher Bader. Described as "a senior member of Hamas in Hebron", he is also "a member of the Palestinian parliament" which has not sat for many years. He has been in Israeli custody since June.
• Muasseb Hashalmon, also of Hebron, is under arrest and described as a money courier who brought cash to Hamas from Turkey.
• The same for Taha Uthman, also of Hebron.
• Another resident of Hebron named as Umar Qimri worked with a Hamas agent based in Gaza to conjure up the deals that were meant to disguise the cash transfers. 
• Yet another resident of Hebron, Yusri Hashalmon, did the same.

The Hamas agent in Gaza is named by Times of Israel as Majd Jaaba who is also originally from Hebron. He has been a Gazan resident since being released to there in the Shalit Deal.

Times of Israel says the Hamas agent at the Turkish end of this scheme is Haron Nasser al-Din, who is also originally from Hebron and like Jaaba got out of prison in the Shalit Deal.

Few in the news media, even in Israel, have closely followed or reported on what the murdering terrorists let loose in the Shalit Deal have done since October 2011. That's why there are unlikely to be reports on who these Shalit winners are and what got them into prison in the first place.

The man called Majd Jaaba is, we believe, prisoner number 996825550. In the Shalit papers, his name is given as Majid Muhammad Yunes al-Jaaba. Born in Hebron in 1970, he had been arrested on April 16, 1995 and charged with multiple offences including intentional homicide. He was found guilty and sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment. As it turned out, he served nothing like that sentence and was released after a mere sixteen years. Now he's back to doing more terror directed at innocent Israelis. To clarify, he was not arrested - he's living free under the Gazan Hamas regime.

The Hamas terrorist holding down the Turkish end of the complex trail is identified in the Shalit papers as Harun Mansur Ya'aqub Nasser al-Din, prisoner number 904273463. He too was born in 1970 and lived in Hebron. On December 15, 1992, he was convicted in an Israeli court of murder, possession of explosives and other related offences and sentenced to life imprisonment. He walked free after less than 19 years, and like his colleague al-Jaaba, is back to his passion for terrorism directed at Israelis. Like al-Jaaba, he is free as a bird, living in Turkey.

Why don't reports of the post-prison exploits of Shalit Deal terrorists tell you what those jihadists did to be in prison in the first place?

By our calculations, based on publicly available documents and our own analysis, of the 1,027 Palestinian Arabs terrorists let loose in the Shalit Deal, 520 - meaning more than half - were in prison for murder, other forms of homicide or attempted homicide.

(The mastermind of the massacre in which our fifteen year old daughter was murdered walked free in the Shalit Deal. Though she has been on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list since March 2017, she is free as a bird under the protection of the Jordanian government which refuses to extradite her. Jordan signed an extradition treaty with the US in 1995.)

26-Jan-17: A Wednesday night Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack

The caption from this March 9, 2016 news photo
says these are "Guns used by two
Palestinians who carried out a shooting attack...
(Israel Police)"

Shortly after Wednesday night's vehicle-borne assault on Israelis standing at a bus-stop just outside northern Jerusalem [our post], a second murderous attack occurred in the same general area. Fortunately the outcome involved no serious injuries to those who were attacked.

From the Times of Israel report:

A Palestinian man opened fire at Israeli troops from a moving car in the central West Bank on Wednesday night, the army said. The soldiers fired back, and injured him. No soldiers were injured in the attack, which took place outside the village of Aboud, northwest of Ramallah. The Palestinian gunman received medical treatment on the scene, the army said. Inside the vehicle, the soldiers found a Carlo-style submachine gun, a makeshift weapon that is prevalent in the West Bank and in the Israeli underworld.

Here's some background about that submachine gun:

...One of the most notable symbols to emerge from six months of Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank has been the “Carlo,” otherwise known as the Carl Gustav submachine gun. The homemade or craft-produced rudimentary automatic weapon has been used in the majority of shooting attacks on Israeli civilians and security personnel. It’s not accurate and it has a limited range, but it’s cheap and more than powerful enough to cause mayhem and death — and it’s nearly impossible to prevent its production... “There has been an expanded effort to seize illegal weapons that pose a concrete and lethal threat to Israeli civilians and security forces,” an army spokesperson said. But nothing has been done so far to seriously curb the creation and proliferation of these homemade guns. While some more advanced rifles and firearms require specialized tools, the Carlo has remained so popular because of how little machinery and technical know-how is required to produce it, according to N.R. Jenzen-Jones, director of Armament Research Services (ARES), a specialized technical intelligence consultancy. A drill press, some welding equipment and blueprints from the internet are all that’s needed to create one of these potentially devastating weapons, a fact that presents a real challenge for Israel and countries around the world that are trying to prevent such guns from winding up in the hands of terrorists and criminals...  The Carlo, as it is known, derives its name from the Carl Gustav m/45 submachine gun, a design that was adopted by the Swedish army in 1945 and later licensed to Egypt, where units were sold under the names Port Said and Akaba, according to a forthcoming report... ["Say hello to ‘Carlo,’ the cheap, lethal go-to gun for terrorists", Times of Israel, March 16, 2016]

For a change, the Ma'an News Agency report eschews the use of "alleged" in its report of last night's terrorist attack, but calls what happened "an exchange of fire" between "Israeli forces" and a "Palestinian".

There's also a timely reminder of the ongoing nature of attacks like last night's in this brief report from Israel National News:

The Israel Defense Forces, Shabak Israel Security Agency and police carried out a widespread operation, Wednesday evening in Hevron, to seize a weapons factory in Hevron. The factory contained eight lathes for making weapons, which were dismantled. The operation was part of an ongoing campaign of nightly operations against weapons factories in Judea.

No one's suggesting this is the last or only Palestinian Arab gun-making workshop. More power to the IDF, the Shin Bet and the men and women of the Israel Police in their ever-vigilant efforts.

11-Oct-16: Who will live and who will die: A Hamas plot is thwarted in Jerusalem

In court today: Thwarted before becoming another Islamist
human bomb [Image Source: Ynet]

As Jews throughout the world prepare for Yom Kippur which commences at sundown today, many will be thinking of the momentous words we are going to recite in the Une'taneh Tokef prayer (in Hebrew: ונתנה תוקף). A key moment in the liturgy for Rosh Hashanah as well as for Yom Kippur for centuries, it is sung and chanted while the ark of the Torah remains open and the members of the congregation are standing:

"You alone are the One Who judges, proves, knows, and bears witness; Who writes and seals, Who counts and Who calculates. You will remember all that was forgotten... All of mankind will pass before You like a flock of sheep. Like a shepherd pasturing his flock, making sheep pass under his staff, so shall You cause to pass, count, calculate, and consider the soul of all the living; and You shall apportion the destinies of all Your creatures and inscribe their verdict. On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed – how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword and who by beast, who by famine and who by thirst, who by upheaval and who by plague, who by strangling and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquility and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted. But Repentance, Prayer, and Charity annul the severe Decree..."

Our personal experience as parents of a child shockingly murdered at the age of fifteen sensitize us to how everything you assume about life can be violently upended irrevocably in moments. Our daughter Malki and her friend Michal stopped off in a central Jerusalem pizzeria for a quick lunch on a school-vacation afternoon just as a human bomb, despatched by the Islamist savages of Hamas, walked in and made his way to where they were giving their order at the counter.

In triggering the explosives hidden in a guitar case on his back, that young man permanently changed the world for us and for many dozens of others: the victims, their families and friends, the many maimed by the explosives and hurt by the shrapnel and by the vicious little black nails that were stuffed into the bomb. And by the injustices that followed.

(Keep those nails in mind as you read on.)

Prayers on Yom Kippur | Wikimedia Commons

We're reminded today of the terribly fine line between the unthinkable happening, and awful outcomes averted by an intervention.

It was reported in the past hour (it's now Tuesday, 12 noon) that an Arab from East Jerusalem has just been indicted in an Israeli court on charges of planning to carry out an attack by a human-bomb (the man himself) on a Jerusalem bus. Here's the Times of Israel's account:

On September 9, the Shin Bet security service arrested alleged Hamas operative Fuaz Ibrahim Julani [the Jerusalem Post gives his name as Muhammad Fuaz Ibrahim Julani] a resident of the Shuafat refugee camp, a few days before he planned to carry out... a terror attack on behalf of Hamas, the Shin Bet said. [H]e told an accomplice he planned to carry out the suicide bombing as “this is the way of God,” according to the indictment. The Hamas terror group’s operatives in the Gaza Strip had been in contact with Julani through the internet in order to plan the bombing and had also encouraged him to recruit other people to carry out attacks, according to the indictment filed against him Tuesday in the Jerusalem District Court.., Though Julani ultimately decided to carry out a suicide bus bombing in the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood of Jerusalem, according to the Shin Bet, he said in his interrogation he had also considered a shooting attack with an AK-47 assault rifle near the Hizme checkpoint; bombing a store where he had worked in 2011; throwing an improvised explosive device at the checkpoint in Shuafat; and pipe bomb attacks in high-traffic locations of Jerusalem, like the bus station and the Malha shopping mall... [He] decided to carry out a suicide bombing after the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which was celebrated from September 12 to 16. By carrying out his attack after the holiday, Julani hoped to prevent Israel from restricting Muslims’ access to the Temple Mount during the holiday, according to the Shin Bet... When Julani was arrested on September 9, he had already purchased the materials necessary to create his bomb, including nails that he planned to pack into the device to maximize the damage... Two members of Julani’s family, Mehmed and Iyad Julani, were also arrested for allegedly helping him hide his illegal weapons.

Over at Ynet, they make an especially chilling observation:

The Shin Bet and Israel Police said that the arrest illustrate the relentless efforts of Hamas officials in the Gaza Strip to carry out serious terrorist attacks inside Israel and the West Bank. Furthermore, both agencies emphasized the use of Arab-Israeli residents by Hamas to gain access to Israeli territory.

There's no getting away from the fact that that last point is poorly understood. It's difficult to take seriously any analysis of how peace can be found and how Islamist terror can be deflected without confronting the realities. What's going on in the minds of the other side? It's a real question, and there are answers.

Our contribution is to point readers to several fact-filled posts that convey information we have found startling: 

• 15-Jun-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 16-May-16: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 14-Dec-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 03-Nov-15: What do they mean when the Palestinian Arabs say they oppose terror?
• 22-Sep-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?
• 10-Dec-14: What else do Palestinian Arabs want, beyond the 80% who say killing of ordinary Israelis is a good thing?"

06-May-16: From Gaza, escalating violence above and below ground

Image Source

The Israeli authorities announced yesterday (Thursday) the discovery of another Hamas attack-tunnel running from the Gazan side of the border into Israel, the second such attack-tunnel to have been exposed in a month. The earlier one was considered

the first to be detected since the end of the last war in Gaza in 2014. The tunnel – about 30-40 metres deep, lined with concrete slabs and equipped with communication lines, air supply and rails for further excavation – was uncovered last week although its existence was confirmed only on Monday. The tunnel reportedly entered Israel in an area some distance from Israeli military bases and civilian homes. Speaking at a media briefing, Lt Col Peter Lerner said the tunnel extended several hundred metres under Israel and was large enough for a man to stand in. ["Israeli military uncovers first Hamas tunnel into Israel since 2014 war", The Guardian, April 18, 2016]

This week's came accompanied with some interesting side stories:

• Israel's Shin Bet revealed just a few hours before Thursday's announcement of the second tunnel that it had captured Mohammad Atuna, 29, a terrorist from Gaza in the service of Hamas and possessing "large amounts of information about the tunnel network". He had been taken into custody in early April, before the report of the first tunnel discovery, though at the time, a Haaretz report, referring to him as Sami al-Atawna, implied that Hamas was denying that he was in Israeli hands.
• There were and are heavy hints in the Israeli media about the extent to which this Atuna has been helpful to their inquiries. He has detailed "the existence of a warren of Hamas tunnels within Gaza itself to be used to ferry fighters and equipment around the Gaza Strip, including rooms for relaxation equipped with showers and mess halls in order to improve the lives of the fighters." 
• It's reported that Atuna has also given up detailed tunnel locations and routes, as well as related information about the techniques used in tunnel construction and other logistical aspects of Hamas’ tunnel strategy. This includes disclosure of the workings of the so-called "Nakba" terrorist unit which is trained "for fighting within Israeli territory".
• Ynet says he gave up details of Hamas's use of private homes and other buildings to hide tunnel construction activity, and pointed out where digging projects were occurring, and the locations of tunnel shafts to be used in the planned attacks. In addition, he handed over the names of many Hamas operatives and their positions within the organization, detailed locations of weapons storage facilities, many of them inside civilian homes. 
• Ynet: "Atuna admitted to having massive amounts of arms at his house, including IEDs, rifles, and suicide vests. He was supposed to give these items out to fighters in the event of another round of fighting."
• He described two classes of tunnel; those within Gaza via which its terrorists can maneuver to hide and to outflank IDF forces; and cross-border tunnels for carrying out attacks on Israeli forces and civilians. "Hamas has invested millions of dollars to enable their Special Forces operatives to stay underground for weeks at a time, lying in wait until the order is given to attack Israel."

Tunnel #2 is said to start some 100 feet, roughly 30 meters, inside the southern part of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, and to stretch from there some as-yet-unspecified distance into Israel. It is constructed about 30 meters below the surface of the ground.

The jihadists have much to lose now that the offensive apparatus is revealed and being dismantled. So on Tuesday, Hamas

directed cross-border gun fire at an IDF engineering vehicle near southern Gaza [Jerusalem Post, May 5, 2016]

And then during, and since, yesterday's uncovering, Israeli communities in the Gaza envelope area have continued to come under fire from the Gazan side for what Haaretz, quoting the IDF, calls

the first time since the end of the 2014 war that Hamas had opened fire on Israeli operations on the ground. Both Hamas and Islamic Jihad released statements warning Israel against any escalation. Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said it was ready to respond to Israeli strikes. “We will not permit this aggression to continue and the enemy should not invoke any reason, and should leave the Strip immediately”... [Haaretz, May 5, 2016]

Vehicles have been damaged on the Israeli side but we're pleased to say there have been no injuries to Israelis up until this point.

An IDF spokesperson said yesterday that the shooting is "a result of Hamas identifying that the Israel Defence Forces were closing in on those assets" i,e, the attack-tunnels. That fire, mortars so far, has continued this morning. A Times of Israel report says a mortar attack on Israeli soldiers this morning working on Gaza's southern-most flank was the twelfth such assault in the past four days.

The Arab media carry reports this morning [like this one] of both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad where they have boasted of their tunneling strategy, warning Israel to back off lest the IDF's "violence... pushes the resistance to reciprocate" and issuing a reminder that "Israeli crimes will not break the spirit" of the Gazan Palestinian Arabs. Hamas' arch-terrorist Ismail Haniyeh says today that the Israelis have penetrated "150 to 199 meters on the pretext of searching for tunnels" [source] and that his murderous group "will not under any circumstance accept these incursions".

Putting Haniyeh's absurd use of "pretext" into a factual context, it has only been a few weeks - certainly long enough for most reporters to forget - that he said Hamas

will never stop digging tunnels and upgrading rockets in preparation for any possible confrontation with Israel [Jerusalem Post]

Hamas is seriously committed to tunnels. It's estimated they have more than 1,000 of its loyalists working to build and extend them at an overall cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars each month. Workers are paid US $300 to 400 per month. It's not such a great deal for them, though they probably have little option. Arab media reports quoted by Israel National News in mid-April said the death toll from a series of "mysterious" Gazan tunnel collapses since January 2016 had reached 20, most of them actual terrorists - and not merely laborers - from its Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.