11-Jul-17: Incitement to terror: Sometimes it really is all about the money

Taylor Force was murdered by an Arab assailant while he jogged on Tel Aviv's foreshore on March 8, 2016. He was 29 and a student at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management. He is pictured here with his sister Kirsten [Image Source]

The US Senate is due to hold hearings tomorrow (Wednesday) on the Taylor Force Act which, if passed, is likely to substantially cut US funding to the Palestinian Authority:

The Taylor Force Act is a legislative bill co-sponsored in the United States Senate in 2016 by U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), Dan Coats (R-Indiana), and Roy Blunt (R-Missouri). The legislation proposes to stop American economic aid to the Palestinian Authority until the PA changes its laws to cease paying stipends funneled through the Palestinian Authority Martyr's Fund to individuals who commit acts of terrorism and to the families of deceased terrorists. [Wikipedia]

Palestinian Media Watch - an Israel-based nongovernmental organization and media watchdog group founded in 1996 by Itamar Marcus documents cases of incitement in Palestinian media - yesterday released a transcript (translated from the original Arabic) of an Israeli Police interrogation of a Palestinian Arab terrorist, one Khaled Rajoub, caught after an unsuccessful attempt to murder Israelis.

In the course of Rajoub's interrogation on February 2, 2014, he gave the police a stunningly candid rationalization for his deeds: so that he would be killed by the Israelis and his wife and children would become entitled to monthly payments from the PA's Rewards for Terror scheme.

It's material that ought to get the widest publicity. But, things being what they are, probably will not.

The text extracted below is based on a longer PMW online version ["Interrogation of Palestinian terrorist proves: PA payments motivate terror", Itamar Marcus and Nan Jacques Zilberdik, Palestinian Media Watch, July 10, 2017] and an earlier version of that same report here.

Had this Rajoub died in the course of carrying out an Arab-on-Israeli terror attack, the PA would have certified him as a "martyr" (in Arabic: shaheed). His family would have become entitled to a monthly allowance of 2,800 New Israeli Shekels per month based on NIS 1,400 base pay, NIS 400 for the wife (for her life) and NIS 200 for each of the five children (for their lives). It's a good, family-sized salary in their society's terms. It would have brought honour on the head of the dead-ender who made it possible by attacking Israelis.

As PMW has reported, it's not only “martyr” families who receive monthly payments; under PA law, every terrorist prisoner is granted a monthly PA salary while in jail, ranging from 1,400 shekels to NIS 12,000 a month based on the time spent in prison. For Khaled Rajoub, the PA's Rewards for Terror and its financial rewards were all the incentive he needed. The scheme works.

Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "I am a man with a family of seven, including me and my wife. I don't work. I have accumulated large debts and am unable to pay them off. I reached a point where, if my son wants a shekel, I have nothing to give him. Therefore I decided to die. It didn't matter how, by hanging, any way, [just] to die. I thought about it and said to myself that if I die by hanging, or any other way, I won't get anything out of it, so I decided to do something serious such as committing murder, something in which I will both kill and die and then my family will get money [meaning from what we call the Palestinian Authority's Rewards for Terror scheme] and will live comfortably. In other words, something will come out of my death. In the end I decided to kill Israeli soldiers. I got in a car and drove to Al-Fawwar, to the junction because there's always a military post there, and I said [to myself] that I'll run [the soldiers] over in my car and kill as many as I can and they'll shoot me and kill me. However, I didn't find a military post in Al-Fawwar. I continued to drive to a second post, to the gate of [the Israeli community of Beit] Hagai because I know there are always soldiers standing there... I did not find [any soldiers] there either. I had no other hope or way, so I broke through the gate of the settlement [meaning Beit Haggai]... I broke in with my car and smashed it and rammed into the second gate. But I couldn't smash it and the guards were behind the second gate. I tried to smash it in order to bring it down on them but it didn't come down and they didn't shoot me, but captured me instead. I was injured during the incident and they took me to a hospital..."
Interrogator: "Do you have a gun?"

Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "I've never carried [a gun]."

Interrogator: "Did you consider bringing a gun?"

Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "I have nothing to eat. How can I buy a gun?" 

Interrogator: "Why did you decide to kill soldiers, and not someone else?"

Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "The best is to kill soldiers. That way they have guns and they'll shoot me and kill me. But if I'm not able to kill soldiers, I'll try settlers, guards - in other words any Israeli target - the important thing is that I will die and they will kill me, so that my children will receive a [PA] allowance and live happily."

Interrogator: "What did you want to achieve by killing soldiers or settlers, or any Israeli target?" 

Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "So they'd shoot me and I'd die, and my children would receive an allowance."

Interrogator: "Are you still determined to do that?" 

Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "Of course, 100%. I'm telling you: if you'll set me free, I'll do it again as soon as possible. I'll bring another car, and I'll run over [soldiers] at the first military post I see. I'll kill as many as possible, and they'll shoot me, and I'll die. There is no other solution... I say to you again - I don't regret what I did, and if I have the opportunity, I'll do it again, and I'll kill soldiers or any Israeli I come across."
Interrogator: "If you have the opportunity to kill soldiers or an Israeli [civilian] in another way - shooting, stabbing, or any other way - will you do it?"

Rajoub to his Israeli interrogators: "I don't know. Something like that requires checking. Why? Because someone like me, small and disabled in his leg - I barely walk - needs a thorough plan to kill in a different way. The easiest way for someone like me is to run over [someone] with a car."

(We're still trying to track down details of the circumstances of the terror attack.)

For what it's worth, let the record show we're strongly in favour of the Taylor Force Act and urge the US Congress to bring it into law as soon as possible. Can there be any doubt, after you read open and candid admissions like Rajoub's, that defunding the PA's Rewards for Terror scheme will save lives - on the Palestinian Arab side as well as on ours?

Are Europe and the UK listening?

23-Apr-17: Tel Aviv tourist precinct: Arab assailant stabs four

The attacker is on the left [Times of Israel video grab]

What's being described as a terror attack began with an assault today (Sunday afternoon, 2:05 pm) inside a Tel Aviv seafront hotel.

At this point, we know of a total of four people injured when a Palestinian Arab male, about 18 years old and according to the Chinese news agency Xinhua employed somewhere nearby, attacked them with wire-cutters. You can see the first stages of the assault in the photo at right.

He launched his assault in the hotel lobby on Hayarkon Street in Tel Aviv's tourist precinct, according to Ynet which has security camera footage of the initial stages of the attack on its site at this hour. The photo above comes from different security cam footage on the Times of Israel site. From our viewing, it appears to be inside the Leonardo Beach Hotel (other reports quote other hotels).

With three victims down, he then fled outside and into the street where he stabbed another person before being stopped and arrested by police.

Israel National News says those hurt are a man in his 70s, two men in their fifties and a woman in her fifties. All are lightly injured and all were treated at the scene before being taken to Ichilov Hospital by Magen David Adom ambulance.

The attacker, a resident of Nablus, is evidently unhurt but likely to be offended by what Israel's justice system has in mind for him.

09-Jun-16: The Tel Aviv killings: Hamas claims credit but Fatah/PA demands some of the glory too

The Arabic caption, depicting a sweet, traditional Ramadan
dessert and a bullet, reads “Tel Aviv operation.” Shehab Agency
is known as the media face of the Hamas terrorists [source]. 
This season is known as peak time for acts of Pal Arab jihadistry

It's a bright and sunny Thursday morning here in Jerusalem - idyllic weather, calm in the air, a festive atmosphere as residents are busy with the pleasures of this coming weekend's Shavuot festival.

In Tel Aviv, the murderous attack last night on the Max Brenner chocolate store in the busy and popular Sarona open-air market precinct is still being scrutinized - by those who were there and survived, by the hundreds of thousands who work nearby or pass by daily, by the authorities responsible for preventing threats to public well-being, by the news media trying to find (and often failing) to sound the right tone. (And note that there are reports of a gag order preventing disclosure by the media in Israel until June 16.)

Ynet names those murdered last as:

• Idan Ben-Aryeh, 42, from Ramat Gan; 
• Ilana Nave, 39, from Tel Aviv; 
• Dr. Michael Feige, 58 from Midreshet Ben-Gurion; 
• Mila Mishayev, 32, from Rishon Lezion.

As for who did the killings, a statement was issued early this (Thursday) morning claiming the two armed shooters who launched the frenzied machine-gun attack on diners were acting in the name of Hamas.

The Islamist terrorist group posing as a government has claimed credit - via its official Twitter account (yes, such a thing exists) - for the killings and injuries, and has praised the assailants both of whom are alive and in the hands of the appropriate Israeli authorities. It calls the shootings “heroic” and it suggests - via a chilling cartoon image [here] - more attacks are going to follow during Ramadan, the month-long Muslim religious observance that began this week. The Arabic caption, depicting a sweet, traditional Ramadan dessert, reads “Tel Aviv operation.”

Times of Israel assesses the human price this morning this way:

At least four people were killed in the terror attack Wednesday night at [Sarona]... another 16 were injured, including three in serious condition... 

The Sarona mall website (click to enlarge)

Ma'an News Agency gives their names as Muhammad Ahmad Moussa Makhamreh and Khalid Muhammad Moussa Makhamreh. They are 21 year old cousins from Yatta, a village near Hebron. One of them is said by Hamas to be a student at a Jordanian university.

Ismail Haniyeh, one of the leaders of the Hamas terrorists, is widely quoted this morning calling one of the two terrorist-shooters a “hero” and intimated, for those concerned with the finer aspects of the Islamist outlook on life, that he was "praying for his soul". Times of Israel says Hamas called the killings of diners seated in a cafe “a message from children of the resistance to leaders of the occupation, especially [Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman]”...

Another Hamas statement, quoted by Ma'an, says the shooting attack

was the first “good omen” for Palestinians and the first “surprise” for the “enemy” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began on Tuesday. Hamas spokesman Hussam Badran applauded the shooters, adding that the fact that they were able to enter Israel from the occupied West Bank showed the failure

of the Israelis. This Hamas Arabic-language article is entitled "Tel Aviv the first signs of the holy month". You learn a lot once you understand what holiness means in the lexicon of this religion-based organization.

Unable to take the risk of appearing less blood-lusting than their Islamist rivals, Fatah - the party that controls the Palestinian Authority and that is headed by the PA president, Mahmoud Abbas - also issued a statement today: Israel is “reaping the repercussions of choosing violence against the Palestinian people.”  According to Ma'an, Fatah media committee head Munir al-Jaghoub said the shooting was an “individual and natural response” to Israeli state violence and that "Israel must realize the consequences of its persistence to push violence, house demolition policies, forced displacement of Palestinians, raids by Israeli settlers to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and the cold-blooded killing of Palestinians at checkpoints”. Fatah's expert made no observations on the morality of opening fire on unarmed non-combatants in a public space crowded with innocent people,.

Palestinian Arab society is in a social-media frenzy this morning adding two fresh candidates [here] to its lengthy list of weapon-toting role-models for their children and heroic figures to be praised by their political and religious leaders.

Israelis, us among them, are asking, even as three of the Israeli victims are still fighting for their lives in intensive care at nearby Ichilov hospital this morning (one of the shooters is being treated there too), whether all the security that could reasonably be deployed was present last night, and whether it can currently be found in all the other locations where it may be needed. The evidence is that the jihadists and those who dispatch them know how to read news reports.

09-Jun-16: In traumatized Tel Aviv, reading the writing on the walls

From Times of Israel, April 24, 2016

Six weeks ago, this local story got a relatively minor degree of attention in the security-obsessed Israeli news market:

Israeli police moved on Sunday to close down the upscale Sarona Market at the center of Tel Aviv over fears that the commercial center was not sufficiently secure, but the site’s management said it would stay open. The popular compound is home to Israel’s largest indoor culinary market. Its 8,700 square meters (93,000 square feet) of market space hosts 91 shops of all varieties. The police asked the Tel Aviv Municipality to revoke Sarona’s business license, arguing that lax security put the visiting public at risk. ["Popular Tel Aviv food market faces closure over lax security", Times of Israel, April 24, 2016]

Sarona was the scene tonight (Wednesday) of a brazen shooting attack by a pair of Palestinian Arab armed terrorists equipped with guns, suits and ties. As we write this, the death toll is four, three additional victims are said to be in serious condition, and many others have suffered wounds from bullets and shrapnel, as well as trauma. One or both of the gunmen are alive and in Israeli custody.

There should be no doubt at all in anyone's minds that throughout Palestinian Arab society tonight - in the villages of Judea and Samaria and the Gaza Strip and in the richly appointed suites of the political elite in Ramallah - those shooters of unarmed restaurant patrons are already being hailed as heroes and figures to emulate.

We hope to be able to offer a more serious analysis in the next few hours. Meanwhile our thoughts and prayers are with the injured and with the families of those murdered tonight.

09-Jan-16: Manhunt for last week's Tel Aviv shooter ends

Arara, northern Israel, Friday afternoon: Forces fan out as the manhunt
converges on the shooter [Image Source]

With the Sabbath just ended, here's what happened right after we posted our last pre-Shabbat article ["08-Jan-16: Tel Aviv on high alert"] on Friday afternoon.

What we know now is that hundreds of Israel Police officers were deployed in parts of northern Israel as well as in the Tel Aviv area during Friday as part of the pursuit of Nashat Milhem, the Israeli Arab gunman who killed three people last Friday afternoon outside the Simta Bar in central Tel Aviv ["03-Jan-16: Friday's Tel Aviv shooter is still on the loose"]. A focus of their efforts was a neighborhood in the northern Israeli Arab village of Arara, Milhem's hometown.

He was known to be armed, and considered dangerous and ready to kill again. Flying inspection checkpoints were set up at multiple locations,  Times of Israel says it's now believed Milhem had been hiding in the Arara area for almost the entire past week.

Evidently what betrayed him in the end, so to speak, was his excrement:

The key piece of evidence that led investigators to Nashat Milhem’s hideout... was the gunman’s feces... The police found the human waste in the vicinity of the area where the raid took place. After it was taken to a laboratory for testing, the authorities discovered that it matched the DNA of the suspect - Jerusalem Post 

Forces from an elite police unit and from the Shin Bet, seeking to capture him alive, tracked the shooter to the hiding place, located in his town and close to his family's home. The Times of Israel account says he spotted them encircling the building and attempted to flee. Still in possession of the powerful weapon he used in the Simta Bar attack, he opened fire on the forces and in the ensuing fire-fight was shot dead. This was made official at about 4.20 pm Friday.

According to Times of Israel, five people had been arrested in the course of the past week in connection with the manhunt, among them several members of Milhem's family.

Chief of Police Roni Alsheikh said the case was not finished, and that police would continue to work to expose any and all others who had helped Milhem before and after the shootings. “All of those involved in terrorism,” Alsheikh said, “should know that we have the means, the determination and the patience to find them all.” [Times of Israel]

There seems to be wall-to-wall approval in Israeli government and opposition circles, as well as in public opinion, with how the week-long manhunt was brought to an end. And in a certain way, that feeling is shared over on the other side, though with a very different emphasis. As the journalist Khaled Abu Toameh reports ["Palestinian Authority joins Hamas in declaring Tel Aviv gunman as 'martyr'"] today:

The Palestinian Authority, Hamas and other Palestinian groups declared Nashat Milhem a shaheed (martyr). The PA Ministry of Health initially added Milhem, who is an Israeli citizen, to its list of “martyrs” who were killed by Israelis during the current wave of terrorism, which began in early October. However, the ministry on Friday night removed Milhem’s name from the list. The ministry explained that it documents the names of Palestinian “martyrs” only in areas that fall under its jurisdiction, namely the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. [Jerusalem Post]

And this report from Times of Israel today reminds us of the deepening gulf between the attitude to co-existence, rights and basic morality on the other side of the fence, and ours:

Palestinians in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of al-Ram on Saturday mourned slain Israeli-Arab gunman Nashat Milhem, who murdered three Israelis in Tel Aviv last week, as a “heroic martyr” who “defeated the occupation.” “We join the family in the mourning the heroic martyr Nashat Milhem, who today has become a martyr of Palestine,” read banners hanging in a mourning tent erected in the neighborhood, one day after the fugitive Milhem was killed in a shootout with Israeli security forces.
“Nashat Milhem defeated the occupation,” another banner read, according to a report on Channel 2 news. Meanwhile in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets to honor Milhem on Saturday afternoon, in a rally sponsored by the terror group... On Friday night, an official Hamas TV station praised Milhem as a “brave hero” and “martyr.” 

There's a disturbing sense here that what makes this particular terror attack so worthy of adulation and attention on the Palestinian Arab side is that it was executed by an Arab with unrestricted Israeli status, papers and profile. Knowing this is one thing. Knowing what to do with it, in a democratic society, is another.

08-Jan-16: Tel Aviv on high alert

It's Friday, early afternoon, and there's a serious terrorism alert in force in Israel's central metropolis.

Hundreds of police officers were deployed in Tel Aviv Friday, and inspection checkpoints were set up at several locations throughout the city after security forces decided to raise alert levels in the city. Although police stressed they had no indication of a terror threat in the region, the new directive signaled a possible development in the ongoing manhunt for a fugitive Arab Israeli suspected of killed two people in a Tel Aviv bar last Friday, before he went on to murder a cab driver whose taxi he hailed to make his escape. [Times of Israel, January 8, 2016]

According to Ynet,

Police stopped cars and requested drivers' IDs. Armed police officers were spotted on Dizengoff Street, not far from last week's attack, and near Dizengoff Center, among other places... [Ynet, January 8, 2016]

At the same time, the Arab village of Ar'ara, in Israel's north, is undergoing a major police operation. It's the town from where Nashat Milhem, believed to be the shooter in the murderous attack in central Tel Aviv exactly a week ago, came from. The general warnings in force say he remains armed, dangerous and capable of striking again. Ynet says police also converged on Kafr Qara in the Wadi Ara area this morning, checking vehicles leaving the town, and that a Wadi Ara resident was arrested.

The Jerusalem Post is reporting that the large police presence in the north today comes in the wake of

new intelligence information about a possible alternative escape route Tel Aviv shooting suspect Nashat Milhem may have taken. Meanwhile, police forces erected checkpoints around the Sharon region, including along a number of the areas on main roads... On Thursday, the Haifa Magistrate's Court extended by three days the police custody of [Nashat] Milhem's father, Muhammed. Police arrested  Muhammad Milhem on Tuesday on suspicion of being an accomplice to the attack that left two Israelis dead. In addition to the father who had served as a police volunteer and initially identified his son to police, the court also extended the remand of a brother and another relative of the suspected gunman.

Developing.

03-Jan-16: Another day in an ongoing war

Hussein Dawabshe interviewed this week [Image Source]

A cold, rainy and somewhat gloomy January day, and terrorism has insinuated its way into the lives of Israelis in almost every part of the country. In no particular order:

• After Friday's murderous point-blank shooting attack on patrons (and staff) at a busy, central Tel Aviv drinking place on Friday afternoon [see our posts of Friday afternoon and Saturday night], the manhunt for Nashat Melhem continued all day today (Sunday). We happened to visit north Tel Aviv's Ibn Gabirol precinct this afternoon, and saw something we are accustomed to seeing regularly in Jerusalem, but rarely outside it: heavily armed rapid-response police riding in pairs on fast motor bikes. Ynet says security forces are patrolling the city in large numbers, "focusing on north Tel Aviv, where Melhem was last seen and where he is believed to still be hiding since the attack on Friday. They are still waiting for the terrorist to make a mistake, or for a "golden tip" that would lead them to him." There's concern the fugitive gunman will launch another attack: "Because of that, the Tel Aviv municipality decided to increase security across the city, particularly around education institutions, including Tel Aviv University. Despite that, many parents chose not to send their children to school. According to the municipality, in the north of the city only about 50 percent of the students came to school..." 
• Two men murdered in Friday's attack, Alon Bakal and Shimon Ruimi, were buried today. Thousands attended the two funerals in Carmiel and Ofakim. There remain about ten individuals who are still being treated for their injuries. A third victim has still not yet been definitively connected to the Friday terror attack, but tragically is as dead as the other two. He is Amin Shaban, a taxi driver and an Israeli Muslim Arab murdered in north Tel Aviv on Friday afternoon about an hour after the Dizengoff shootings. Two hundred of his family and friends, including his three widows and 11 children, gathered in Lod this afternoon to lay him to rest. Ynet quotes family members saying they still do not know whether his murder is connected to the Dizengoff attack. "There are a lot of rumors and the family is not being updated. There is still an attempt to see if the background is criminal, and that's bizarre because there's no chance".
• Around 4 this afternoon (Sunday) in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv ("Government House") precinct, a Palestinian Arab knife man launched a stabbing attack on a civilian waiting at a bus stop on Barazani Street. He pulled out his knife and managed to stab but failed (because the weapon became bent out of shape) to penetrate the skin of his intended victim, a person he, of course, did not know. He then fled in the direction of nearby Sur Baher, an Arab community. A Jerusalem Post report says security forces "launched a manhunt shortly after initial distress calls and apprehended a suspect who fits the description given by eyewitnesses". He was arrested.
• At about 2:00 this afternoon, a female soldier was struck and wounded in a sniper-fire shooting attack at a security checkpoint close to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. A search was conducted by Israeli security forces of the area. Haaretz says the shooter is believed to have fired from one of the adjoining Palestinian Arab residences: "A 20-year-old female Israeli soldier was moderately wounded... She was evacuated to Shaare Zedek Medical Center, Jerusalem. Security forces are combing the area... Magen David Adom paramedic Hanoch Zalinger Siffer said... "She was shot in the lower body, and we provided medical treatment while evacuating her to the hospital", which we understand was Shaarei Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.
• Indictments were announced this morning for several Jewish males - some of them minors - accused of involvement in the firebombing of a residence in the Arab village of Duma ["31-Jul-15: In the wake of a lethal arson attack"]. This disturbing story is going to be with us for some time to come. For now, here is what Hussein Dawabsha, an elderly member of the clan whose daughter, son-in-law and grandson died in the fire on July 31, 2015, reportedly said in an interview today: "There is no law nor justice in Israel. It’s one big show... The Israeli court system, the State of Israel is a dark country. They will probably decide to put them in prison for several years and then release them. Instead of killing them like they killed my boy and my grandson... Those who burned my family should themselves be burned... Only an intifada will avenge the death of the Dawabsha family. They should continue with more attacks, having faith in Allah. Only in this way we will achieve our rights." We say that putting terrorists into prison and then releasing them a short time later is indeed a serious issue and a heavy, almost insurmountable, challenge to justice in this country. We suspect Grandfather Dawabsha is unaware that by far the majority of those walking free - like the more-than-a-thousand convicted terrorists, many of them murderers of Jewish Israelis, who were set loose in the Shalit Deal in 2011 - were, of course, Palestinian Arabs. And most of them have sickeningly murderous views similar to his.
• Grandfather Dawabsha's ugly threats contrast greatly with the messages issued in his name half a year ago in the immediate aftermath of the Duma village deaths. Here's what he is reported to have said in a Times of Israel interview published August 2, 2015 [here]: He had been a construction worker who helped build Chaim Sheba Medical Center, the vast Tel Aviv hospital where doctors are today working to save the life of his four-year-old grandson Ahmad. "My friends are Jews. I worked here, and helped build the buildings at the Sheba Medical Center where my relatives are now hospitalized... We want to live. Please join our prayer for their recovery — Jews and Arabs — so that my grandson will be the last victim of the terror war... We are simple people, who pursue and seek peace,.. We don’t want terror on either side, and we condemn it." For reasons which ought to be obvious, there's no reason to be surprised.
• A shooting attack in the Har Hevron area around 6 this evening has resulted in injuries to an Israeli male. Times of Israel says he is an IDF soldier; his injuries are believed to be non-life-threatening. No word on the shooter. Further details to come.
• Saturday night, shots were fired at vehicles traveling the Tunnel Road that connects Jerusalem with the Gush Etzion communities to its south, passing through and underneath hills on the south and east of Bethlehem. The section of Route 60 running to, through and from the tunnel was closed to traffic for some hours while security personnel sought the shooter, effectively isolating thousdands of households in Efrat, Alon Shvut and other sizable communities in the Gush Etzion area. Ynet says the sole victim of the shooting is a Palestinian Arab driver, whose injuries are not life-threatening. The shooter has not yet been apprehended.

Another day.

03-Jan-16: Friday's Tel Aviv shooter is still on the loose

As a follow-up to our real-time report ["01-Jan-16: Friday afternoon shooting in central Tel Aviv"], it's now early Sunday morning and Israel's police and security forces are still engaged in a manhunt for the gunman who killed two people and wounded several others in a broad-daylight attack on people in a busy Tel Aviv bar. Here's what we know:

• The shooter is an Israeli Arab from the Arab village of Arara in northern Israel. His name is Nashat Melhem, and he served time in an Israeli prison after being sentenced in 2007 to five years behind bars for attacking violently, and trying to grab a gun, from an IDF soldier, Ram Jan, at Karkur Junction near the IDF’s Mahane 80 base.
• Melhem's father is a police volunteer. Times of Israel says he recognized his son in video footage of the attack and alerted the police. The son had stolen his father’s weapon - an Italian-made Spectre semi-automatic pistol - from a safe at their home.
• The father, Mashat Melhem, works for a security firm in Hadera.
• Another Melhem son, Jaudat, was arrested Friday on suspicion of involvement in the crime.
• Security video footage was released today showing the actual attack, and the moments leading up to it.

• According to a NY Times report, a clansman of the shooter, Sami Melhem, a lawyer "who said he had represented the suspect in the past, identified him as a 29-year-old resident of Arara, an Arab town in northern Israel. “He has severe depression and unusual behavior,” Mr. Melhem said."
• The shooter fired single rounds at first, and then put his weapon into automatic mode. He replaced its magazine at least once during the attack.
• The two people killed at the Dizengoff site were Alon Bakal, 26, the pub's manager; and Shimon Ruimi, 30, a patron from Ofakim, in Israel's south, celebrating a birthday along with several long-time friends.
• Police are checking a potential link between the Dizengoff shooting and another murder, that of Amin Shaaban, an Arab Israeli taxi driver whose body was found in Yonitzman St. in north Tel Aviv not long after the attack took place [Haaretz].

01-Jan-16: Friday afternoon shooting in central Tel Aviv

Via social media

There are reports now of a Friday afternoon shooting (it's now 3:00 pm, just an hour before the onset of the Sabbath) at a pub in central Tel Aviv. The first moments after such dramatic news tend to be affected by speculation, but the indications are - for the moment - that this is a terror attack.

Israel National News:

"One person has been killed and at least four others severely wounded in a in a shooting along Tel Aviv's Dizengoff Street. Magen David Adom paramedics at the scene are treating one critically injured person, along with three others in serious condition. The circumstances of the attack are not yet clear. According to initial reports the shooter has been "neutralized.""

But other reports say there is a chase underway after the gunman. Haaretz says this is happening at the intersection of Gordon and Dizengoff. All the streets in the vicinity are now blocked as a search goes on for the shooter.

Via Channel 2's live coverage, it appears (at 3:15 pm) that a suspect was apprehended, though it's too there were, naturally, doubts whether he is the shooter or related to the shooting.

It's a very busy part of Israel's biggest city. The Channel 2 interviews indicate 10 injured including 4 in serious or critical condition, one dead. Everyone is being careful not to confirm that this was a terror attack, though there's agreement that an armed individual entered a pub and opened fire.

Despite reports (which are seeing) that the shooter is in the hands of the authorities, it seems clear (at 3:25 pm) he is not, and a full-scale police operation is underway in one of the cafe, bar and restaurant precincts of Tel Aviv, adjacent to the busy Dizengoff Mall, with armed personnel moving quickly with their weapons brandished.  An interviewee describes seeing the shooter, acting methodically, holding and firing an M-16 automatic rifle.

Screen capture at 3:30 pm Friday: Police in pursuit.

The death of a second victim was just announced (3:33 pm). Concrete information remains in short supply. 

On the Arab side, the public reactions will cause little surprise. Click this link and see Arabic-language Tweets, many of which are referring at this hour, when no victims have been named, to Israeli settlers having been shot.

More to come.

19-Nov-15: Thursday, bloody Thursday

Aerial view of Gush Etzion Junction, south of Jerusalem
[Image Source]

It's been a day of bloody Arab-on-Israeli attacks here again. We are witnessing an escalation - rammings, shootings, stabbings - but it's early to reach conclusions about what this signifies.

Times of Israel says a 16-year-old Palestinian Arab boy approached Border Patrol security personnel guarding the entrance to the ancient and sacred Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron during early Thursday morning. He managed to arouse their suspicions and they stopped and searched him. He was found to be carrying a knife which, in the context of the dozens of stabbing attacks perpetrated by Arabs on Jews since the start of October, is something that produces an immediate Israeli response. He was arrested and taken away to be interrogated. No one was injured in what could easily have become a fatal encounter.

In another part of Hebron this morning, at the Pharmacy Checkpoint (as it's known to Israelis), an improvised explosive grenade was hurled at the security personnel manning the barrier during a "demonstration" by Palestinian Arabs. Times of Israel reports injuries to one of the Israelis, a soldier, who was treated on the spot. No word at this stage about the identity of the attacker. Firebombs were hurled at the security team manning the same checkpoint three weeks ago.

There has been further bloodshed in two major terror attacks done this afternoon in metropolitan Tel Aviv and in the Gush Etzion communities a few minutes drive south of Jerusalem.

South Tel Aviv's Beit Panorama Center via Google Street View

Based on reports from Israel television news, Haaretz, Ynet and Times of Israel, we know of a murderous rampage early this afternoon by a Palestinian Arab male of 26, a resident of Dura, a village near Hebron, and the bearer of a fresh entry-permit issued less than a week ago and allowing him to work in Israel, according to a Channel 2 report, "came to kill Jews" in the Tel Aviv area. The attack, by knife, was done inside the large and busy Beit Panorama office/retail/workshop complex on Ben Zvi Road in the southern section of Tel Aviv. Some reports are saying he was employed in one of the Beit Panorama restaurants. The knife man, in search of Jewish victims, perhaps religious Jews as happens with sickening frequency, spotted a minyan engaged in afternoon prayers in a makeshift chapel inside a Judaica shop. There, he managed to stab three people before being subdued by an alert passer-by equipped with no weapons other than an iron bar, yet managed to stop him and hold him in place until police arrived. Haaretz says two of the Israelis, males and said to be in their thirties, died of their injuries. The third has stabbing injuries defined as moderate. The terror-minded Palestinian Arab assailant is lightly injured and in the hands of the police.

Based on an Israel National News report, it appears that a short while later this afternoon, a terror-minded attacker (and perhaps 3 - we are checking) shot at Israelis traveling in at least three vehicles, including a light bus, via an Uzi sub-machine gun (according to Channel 2 News coverage at 6:00 pm) from his car, a Toyota sedan, in the Tzomet Gevaot road junction adjacent to the Alon Shvut community.

The shooter continued on from there, ramming his vehicle into an Israeli victim at the frequently-jam-packed Alon Shvut Junction. One of the shooting victims, described by Jerusalem Post as "an approximately 18-year old... youth [who] was an American tourist"], was pronounced dead at the scene. At least seven more people are injured - two of them critically including a man of about 50 who suffered bullet wounds to the upper parts of his body. He was rushed unconscious to Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem. Other casualties were taken for emergency treatment at Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek Medical Center. The attacker was shot; reports say he was "neutralized", a term which leaves some doubt as to whether he is going to be interrogated. (This video appears to show him dead beside his car.) Israel's Channel 2 News says (5:45 pm) reports the shooting deaths of two Israelis and of a third victim, a Palestinian Arab male ("in his forties") described as "evidently killed by accident".

There's still much to absorb in all of this. Israelis will be wanting to understand the implications, including the use of what is termed in Hebrew "hot weapons", a reference to the Uzi. One thing, however, is clear: the very limited interest there is here in attaching flags of Israel to people's social media avatars - experience tells us this generally fails to keep the killers out of our lives.

08-Oct-15: Tel Aviv stabbing attack; two Israelis hurt

Around 3:00 pm today, another knifing attack by an Arab on Israelis:

Two people were stabbed by a Palestinian man in Tel Aviv on Thursday, hours after a similar attack left a haredi man seriously injured in Jerusalem. The assailant was shot dead after attacking passers-by with a screwdriver opposite the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv. The Police cordoned off Begin junction, one of the busiest junctions in the city, fearing a second terrorist might be on the loose. [Ynet]

22-Jan-15: "I Am Knife"

Israeli victim of the knife-man's frenzied terror attack yesterday
on a Tel Aviv bus [Image Source] 

From the Daily Mail UK, January 21, 2015:

A hashtag that states 'I am knife' has begun trending on Twitter as hardline users take to social media to heap praise a Palestinian man who stabbed 11 people on a bus in Tel Aviv. The messages are an attempt to reappropriate the hashtag of solidarity - #JeSuisCharlie - which swept the world in the wake of the terrorist massacre at the Charlie Hebdo magazine offices. However, the tweets - often accompanied by illustrations which depict the Palestinian flag and a bloody knife - are being posted in support of the stabber, who was shot by a prison officer after injuring 11 people in a brutal act of violence.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus, writing on The Jewish Press website today notes

The hatred of Israelis, of Jews, has become such a public experience, that people on social media appropriated the recent homage to those murdered at the French satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine, “#JeSuisCharlie, and created their own version: #JeSuisCouteau, which means “I Am Knife.” The people using this hashtag, frequently accompanied by grotesque cartoons of stabbed Jews or glorifying pictures of knives, are celebrating the vicious attack on Jews.
What follows are many examples of the tweets and Tumblr posts glorifying the weapon used to attack Israelis.

Please click through to see the sickening gallery of malevolence collected there. And then let's ask ourselves where the media outrage is.

Here's what we just tweeted:

Meanwhile a reminder of how none of this is mere polemics if you live in the area:

Police on Thursday arrested a Palestinian man who entered Israel illegally and attempted to stab officers dispatched to detain him. The officers apprehended the 22-year-old suspect in the central city of Ra’anana, and found a second knife on his person. No injuries were reported. [Times of Israel, this afternoon]

The foreign media will ignore this since the operating dictum for many of them is "If it bleeds, it leads" - but otherwise it's mere background noise. Or they will treat the terrorism aspect as if it were something subjective - not reality but mere claims. Like the editors at The Telegraph, UK did -

Source

Those quote marks around 'terrorist' are the larger story.

21-Jan-15: Knife-wielding attacker in central Tel Aviv

The bus and the emergency service
vehicles are on the right [Image Source: Via
Twitter]

Too soon to have all the details, but the reports on Israeli news bulletins during this morning's (Wednesday) rush hour are of a terrorist stabbing attack on a busy city bus traveling Tel Aviv's Route 5 [correction: it was probably Route 40 from Bat Yam to Tel Aviv's northern suburbs] right in the middle of the country's business center.

Times of Israel says a man, not yet identified,

pulled out a knife and started stabbing passengers... leaving at least 10 injured... Most of the victims were lightly injured, but there were reports of at least two in serious condition.

On radio, it's reported he stabbed the driver first, but this did not prevent him from opening the doors to allow passengers to get out.

Other numbers of victims are being reported, and the fact that the stabber ran, was shot but not killed, and is now bound and in the hands of interrogators. There are photos of him handcuffed and lying in mud.

Two of the terrorist's stabbing victims, according to Ynet, are critically injured.

The attacker, armed with a concealed knife and lunging at commuters on their way to work, is already the recipient of praise from an organization that cultivates such outrages: Hamas, while the victims are still bleeding in the street, calls it "a heroic and courageous act".

UPDATE 9:25 am Larger number of casualties, says Haaretz: 16 injured, of whom 6 "in serious condition". (Ynet at 10:30 this morning says "13 stabbed, four badly hurt".) If the injured were cartoonists, the editors of the world's major news outlets might be having an easier time referring to them as victims of terror and referring to the attacker, with no need for the use of doubt-sowing apostrophes, as a terrorist. It's nauseating to see how some of the most influential names in news are doing gymnastics to avoid those plain terms. Their agenda ought to be troubling us and their consumers/readers.

UPDATE Thursday January 22: From Times of Israel -

Hamza Matrouk, 23, of Tulkarem, told Shin Bet interrogators that he embarked on the stabbing spree in retaliation for Israel’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza last summer and the recent unrest on the Temple Mount. He admitted that he was motivated by watching radical Islamic television programs, and spoke of “reaching paradise.” Israeli security forces on Thursday raided three houses belonging to friends and relatives of Matrouk.

10-Nov-14: Stabbing attack by terrorist at entrance to Tel Aviv train station

Security personnel at the scene of this afternoon's terror attack [Image Source]

From Times of Israel whose reporter pieced this together well from multiple sources:

An IDF soldier, about 20 years of age, was critically wounded after being stabbed multiple times in a terror attack at Tel Aviv’s Hahagana train station on Monday afternoon...  The spokesman for Magen David Adom [Israel's main ambulance service] said the victim was unconscious and was found by paramedics without a pulse, and received first aid at the scene... Police confirmed the attack was a politically motivated terrorist attack. A 50-year-old man who confronted the terrorist was lightly injured in the scuffle, and received medical treatment at the scene, Channel 2 reported. The attacker was in police custody, Israel Radio reported. Initial reports identified the suspect as an 18-year-old Palestinian man from Nablus who had illegally entered Israeli territory. Channel 2 named the stabber as Nur al-Din Abu Khashiyeh. Police were interrogating the man and had forwarded his identity to the Shin Bet security agency. An eyewitness to the attack said the victim was wearing an air force uniform. Hamdi asked the public to be alert and report any Palestinians residing illegally in Israel to the authorities. The terrorist tried unsuccessfully to grab the soldier’s gun after stabbing him repeatedly in the leg, Israel Radio reported. Eyewitnesses identified the attacker as wearing a red shirt and jeans, and said he fled west in the direction of the Tel Aviv central bus station. Police arrested the man, who hid on the fourth floor of a building near the scene of the crime, Israel Radio reported.

We're hearing that the victim, still un-named at this hour, is hospitalized at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center better known to Israelis by its historical name, Ichilov. He is in surgery as we write this, and in critical condition, fighting for his life. Israel National News says he was "stabbed numerous times, including in the upper body and waist, as he tried to fight off his attacker". One source says the Hebrew name (traditionally a name that includes the mother's name) of a terror victim in great need of prayer support is Almog Asa'el Ben Michal.

As for the people behind the attack:

Hamas did not claim responsibility for the stabbing, but the Hamas television network praised the attack. [Yisrael Hayom, today]

The knife left behind by
the attacker today [Image Source]

There's a photo of a man alleged to be today's attacker here, in which he is displaying what is said to be a Hamas flag. At this stage, we're reluctant to display the photo itself.

Ynet adds

Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovich arrived at the scene. He was given a cold reception by the locals who screamed "Where is the security?" and "Death to terrorists!" as he passed by.

The very recent context for today's attack is clear to Israelis:

• "27-Oct-14: Another quiet, decent life whose tragic end fails to merit news reporting" (two victims murdered by an Arab driver who mowed them down at a Jerusalem tram stop)
• "30-Oct-14: Violence on Jerusalem's streets rises while poll shows support among Pal Arabs for more of it is growing" (attempted murder outside Jerusalem's Menachem Begin Heritage Center) 
• "07-Nov-14: At the BBC, a road 'accident' in the far-off Middle East gets curiously prominent coverage" (two victims murdered by another Arab driver who moved them down at a Jerusalem tram stop)

In yet another stabbing attack this past Saturday night in the Galilee town of Kafr Kanna, north of Nazareth (reported here), an Arab man armed with a knife lunged at police who were inside a police vehicle and tried to stab them. The officers shot him dead.

UPDATE Monday November 10, 2014 at 9:30 pm: Sadly, the most seriously injured of the Tel Aviv stabbing victims succumbed to his injuries and died [says Jerusalem Post] tonight. His name was not cleared for publication for some hours. We now know he is Almog Shilony, 20, from Modi'in [source]. And we also know that a Hamas spokesperson, Husam Badran, speaking from the comfort of his luxurious exile in Doha, Qatar, "said the attack was an indication of the determination of the Palestinian people". And by the way: We mentioned Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center above; that happens to be where the murdering terrorist is currently receiving medical care. There's a photo of him in a hospital bed there, courtesy of a Twitterer here,

23-Jul-14: Flying solo, yet again

Ben Gurion Airport, Tel Aviv [Image Source]

Israelis, deeply engaged in fighting a no-holds-barred enemy that turns its own children into human shields for its armed men who take aim at our children, is waking up to an unwelcome new/old reality this morning:

Airlines in the United States and Europe suspended flights to and from Israel on Tuesday after a rocket fell about a mile from Ben-Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv. Major airlines canceled service — and in several cases, diverted planes in midflight — after the Federal Aviation Administration instructed American carriers not to fly to Israel for 24 hours because of the “potentially hazardous situation created by the armed conflict in Israel and Gaza.” The disruption of air travel at the height of the summer tourism season highlighted the growing impact of the conflict in the Gaza Strip on the Israeli economy, even as the government sought to project an aura of business as usual. [New York Times, July 22, 2014]

Who is flying into Israel today? GLOBES, the Israeli business newspaper, says only the three Israeli airlines:  El Al Israel Airlines, Arkia and Israir. It's worth keeping in mind for future reference.

Times of Israel's report points out the dichotomy of views behind the decision:

Israel called American carriers to assure them there was no security problem for take-offs and landings. US Secretary of State John Kerry told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the ban was ordered only to protect the safety and security of US citizens.

The flight advisory board at Ben Gurion at this moment
[Source]

Safety and security are certainly vital concerns. Israelis share them, but wonder whether the US entirely understands that

most of the rockets fired at the Tel Aviv area by militants had been intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile system. Ephraim Sneh, a retired general and deputy defense minister of Israel, was sharply critical of the decision to suspend flights. It was a dream of the militant Hamas leadership “to disconnect Israel from the outer world,” he told reporters... [New York Times, July 22, 2014]

As a Jerusalem Post article this morning points out ["El Al says there is 'no chance' it will cancel flights to, from Israel"], the major Israel-based carriers El Al and Arkia will keep serving travelers to and from Israel, of course. They did the same the last time a host of foreign operators suddenly cancelled all of their Israel-bound flights in 1991 as Saddam Hussein's Iraqi forces made a previous missile-driven assault on Israel.

There's something sadly familiar to Israelis and their supporters at the sight of fair-weather friends crumbling on cue: that's you Delta, United, US Airways, Lufthansa, Germanwings, Austrian Airlines, Swiss, Air France among many others.

Yet another reminder, even in these times of a global village and universal brotherhood, of what Jewish experience has taught us [see "A nation that dwells alone"].

12-Jul-14: Saturday night live

Israel Television Channel 2 broadcasting
live as rockets appear in the skies above Tel Aviv

Here in Jerusalem, the Sabbath passed quietly until the Tzeva Adom sirens sounded throughout the city late this afternoon.

• Towards the end of the Sabbath, around 7:20 pm, Hamas announced that it had fired three M-75 rockets at Jerusalem. Times of Israel reported shortly afterwards that a rocket "landed at the entrance to a Palestinian home in the Hebron area. The home is in the Umm-Dalia neighborhood, inside Palestinian-controlled territory, close to a liaison office staffed by Israeli and Palestinian security officers. The owner of the affected home, Iyad a-Raabi, says it was damaged by the strike. He says the rocket landed just two or three meters from his front door." Ynet points out that Hebron, which took one of the hits, is "a city controlled mostly by Hamas". It adds that two additional rockets hit Bethlehem and Gush Etzion and quotes a Faebook post by the IDF's Arab-language spokesman, Avihay Adarei mocking an earlier Hamas claim that "the "resistance" knows where to fire, so Arabs are not hurt." "A few minutes ago, a pointless rocket fired by the resistance, as it calls itself, fell inside the city of Hebron. What do you think about the Hamas spokesman's comments from yesterday, that the resistance knows the geography and therefore knows how to avoid having rockets hit Arabs?"
• 08:55 pm: A rocket was intercepted and destroyed by Iron Dome in the skies over Ashdod, after sirens sounded in the city earlier. [Times of Israel]
• 09:10 pm: Extraordinary images on Israel's Channel 2 Television of live coverage from the Greater Tel Aviv (Gush Dan) area, with multiple rockets in the air heading towards the country's major population centers.
• 09:15 pm: And Tzeva Adom warnings (which we are seeing on TV) in Bet Shemesh and Ashdod areas.
• 09:30 pm: Channel 2 and Ynet report a Gazan terrorist rocket crashes, for the first time, in the Modi'in area, a dormitory suburb located half-way between Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv. No serious damage, no injuries.
• 11:00 pm: Initial reports of rockets being fired into Israel from Lebanon. 
• 11:05 pm: Times of Israel says 3 rockets have been fired from Lebanon and crashed into open territory. Tzeva Adom sirens blared in Israel's far-north city of Nahariya and surrounding region in the north. No injuries or damage reported. "Hezbollah is not believed to be behind the rocket fire. Other jihadi or Palestinian groups suspected, as in the incident Friday morning when two rockets fell near the northern town of Metulla." On the other hand, a Hamas official in Lebanon is quoted saying Hamas and the Lebanese terrorists from Hezbollah are coordinating and “exchanging expertise” on Israel with "constant field cooperation and coordination” according to Osama Hamdan in the Lebanese Daily Star:  “The relationship with Hezbollah and Iran today is better than everyone thinks, and ties with Hezbollah [specifically] is by far better than what [enemy] optimists want to believe,” Hamadan,says. “These ties are based on confronting the Zionist and working on liberating Palestine. Everyone is keen on preserving such a relationship regardless of how much the circumstances change and opinions differ.”
• 11:10 pm: AP quotes the IDF's Spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Motti Almoz, saying Israel plans to hit Gaza with heavy force in the next 24 hours and that Palestinians living in the northern Gaza Strip ought to evacuate the area "for their own safety." That's the base from which the terrorists of Gaza have been repeatedly and provocatively firing rockets at Tel Aviv. "In a statement Saturday, the military said it would send messages to residents overnight to leave the area." French newsagency AFP carries a similar report. 
• 11:15 pm: Israel has fired back at the source of those Lebanese rockets [source].
• 11:30 pm: We're dumbstruck by how people have been telling us (via Twitter and emails) they are backing the Gazan side because there have been so many casualties down there compared with so few Israeli losses. It's quite a compelling argument, no? The logical extension is when there are more dead Jewish children, our side gets to have more supporters. Do the on-line social media make people stupid faster than television and newspapers used to?
• 11:45 pm: Unconfirmed report that all electrical power is out in the Gaza Strip. We're checking. 
• 12:20 am: We're monitoring the Hamas TV station, Al Aqsa. For what it's worth, the outdoor scenes they have shown in the past half hour seem to show darkness, absence of street lighting. But this is by no means confirmation of the idea that all electric power in Gaza is out. And the TV station is clearly supplied with power.

Al Aqsa TV from Gaza a few minutes ago

• 12:30 am: We're just catching up now with a report published on Saturday while we were offline. An UNRWA warehouse in Gaza, presumably filled with the kinds of things that the ordinary people of Gaza need in order to get through their miserable, Hamas-manipulated lives, went up in flames today after it was struck by... a Hamas rocket. [Source] Yes, yet another Fell Short, one of those hideous, self-inflicted blows that follow from having out-of-control terrorist thugs controlling your streets and firing off rockets in indiscriminate fashion with a significant proportion of them falling onto the rooftops and heads of their own Gazan brethren. How long before the Gazans rise up and free themselves from the death-cultists? And by the way: why is the fact of the UNRWA fire having so little impact on the news? You saw it reported? Here's a scene [source] of Saturday's fire:

UNRWA warehouse goes up in flames on Saturday after
being hit by a Hamas "Fell Short" rocket

• 12:45 am: Updated report on the aftermath of the barrage of rockets on Tel Aviv earlier tonight: Times of Israel says a man was hit in the leg by shrapnel from a rocket warhead. He's being treated know at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot. And Palestinian Arab rioters, several dozen of them, all with their faces covered, are rioting at this moment, attacking Israeli police with rocks and firebombs in Isawiya and A-Tur, both of them largely-Arab neighbourhoods of Israel's capital city, Jerusalem. Police are responding with crowd-control weapons. No reports of injuries at this stage. Firefighters are battling a small forest fire on Mount Scopus, in Jerusalem's northern suburbs, evidently caused by a firebomb.
• 1:00 am: After the IDF issued thousands of notes, leaflets, text messages and phone calls (in accordance with established procedure) to ordinary Gazans, telling those in northern Gaza Strip communities to leave the area as fast as possible [see our 11:10 pm note above], the Gazan Interior Ministry (back in action, it appears, now that no one is taking seriously the so-called "reconciliation" regime headed by Mahmoud Abbas and supposedly free of any overt Hamas presence) has responded with its own announcement [source]. Hamas spokes-thug Iyad al-Bazam is urging Gazans not to heed Israeli army warnings to evacuate areas that are about to be hit. In other words, knowing what Israel plans to do, Hamas is telling its people to stay put and serve as human shields for the jihadist leadership. For everyone interested in a brief summary of how international law works on this matter of hiding behind human shields, take a look at "Getting the law right on the Israel-Hamas conflict" by a professor of law who directs the International Humanitarian Law Clinic at Emory University's School of Law. Highly recommended.
• 1:15 am: Just a follow-on thought after that previous comment: This announcement having been made by the Hamas-controlled ministry makes something of a joke out of the Obama administration  which went along with the charade of a 'reconciliation' regime devoid of any Hamas presence. Do we think anyone in Washington is going to make an "oops" statement now?
• 1:20 am: Back to those rockets fired into northern Israel from Lebanon in the past couple of hours. Now reported that one crashed and exploded in a warehouse in a northern Israel village (no names at this stage); a second exploded in an open field, causing no significant damage or injuries; the third in Lebanon (yet another Fell Short). As to who did the firing, Hamas says its personnel are responsible, and thus not the Lebanese terrorists of Hezbollah.
• 2:10 am: A state of emergency is in effect at Ben Gurion Airport as a Delta flight (probably this one) en route from Tel Aviv to New York is returning to TLV after reporting technical difficulties [source]. UPDATE 2:35 am - safely landed B"H. Details later.
• 2:22 am: From Times of Israel: "Fighting is confirmed near the beach north of Gaza City. It is still unclear if significant IDF forces are involved. The IDF has not conducted a sea landing with a large number of troops in decades... Gazans on social media are saying they can hear machine gun fire near Gaza City in the northern part of the Strip. It is not immediately clear if the reported gunfire means IDF troops are operating on the ground in the Strip."