27-Apr-18: On Jerusalem's southern edge, an overnight intercept appears to have thwarted an armed terror attack

The intercepted vehicle at the security checkpoint in southern
Jerusalem [Image Source: Israel Police]

We have little patience for critics of Israel who object to security checkpoints that inconvenience those going about their peaceful business. The problem with the objection, naturally enough, is that not everyone going about their business is peaceful.

This is especially - and importantly - true of the entrances to Israel's populated areas. Places like Jerusalem, the capital.

On Jerusalem's southern edge, in the general area of suburban Gilo and Malcha and the nearby Israeli community of Har Gilo, close to Jerusalem's famous Biblical Zoo and more or less on the outer edges of Bethlehem, there's a security checkpoint we know as Ein Yael, with a gorgeous public nature reserve and ancient historical site, the Ein Haniya natural spring and a hands-on museum for children. (Haaretz wrote about developments there in the past few weeks.)

B'Tselem, a far-left Israeli group, that deals in human rights violations, publishes an on-listing ["Checkpoints in the West Bank and Gaza"] which catalogues what you would expect from the name. Here's how it describes the checkpoint:

al-Walajah / Malha / ‘Ein Yalu
Permanently staffed Last checkpoint before Israel
Located on the Green Line. Staffed around the clock by the military, Border Police, and private security companies. Closed to Palestinians, with the exception of East Jerusalem residents.

In the very early hours of this morning (Friday), a little after 1:00 am according to this Hebrew social media report, members of the Israeli Border Guard (Mishmar Hagvul - the border security branch of the national police) did exactly what security personnel are supposed to do when everything works right: they spotted what they called a "suspicious" vehicle en route to Jerusalem right at the crossing. This one had yellow Israeli license plates, and on closer inspection was found to be driven by a pair of Palestinian Arabs who we now know are residents of Hebron and nearby Beit Jala.

Times of Israel says

Security forces arrested two West Bank Palestinians who tried to enter Israel with a pipe bomb Thursday night, police said. A statement from police said the “suspicious” vehicle carrying the Palestinians was stopped at the Ein Yael checkpoint in southern Jerusalem. A search of the vehicle yielded the homemade explosive device, a knife, and tens of thousands of shekels in cash and checks, it said. An army sapper was called to the scene to defuse the pipe bomb. The suspects were detained for questioning.

Israel National News, quoting  an Israel Police statement said

"Border Police soldiers and police officers are deployed around the clock in the Jerusalem area to locate and inspect vehicles and suspects in order to protect the lives of Israeli citizens."

The suspects have now been taken for interrogation. Neither they nor their weapons of war would have been intercepted if the checkpoint were not there (and they knew it was so they took an unsuccessful calculated risk) and the security personnel were less alert.

05-Jul-17: At a security checkpoint near Jerusalem, alert personnel thwart terror attack

The gang members meditate on their actions
in Israeli custody after the intercept
[Image Source: Social Media]

People who like the idea that terrorist attacks against Israelis have receded into the past are advised to stop reading now and go to another page:

Terror attack in Jerusalem foiled | Border police arrest 6 suspects attempting to enter Jerusalem with explosives and knives | Border police units and police arrest 6 suspects in a vehicle at the Mizmorah crossing, one of the crossings in the outskirts of Jerusalem. The suspects from Nablus attempted to make their way into Jerusalem and were stopped at the crossing before entering. The vehicle was searched and a bag was found containing knives, stun grenades and Molotov cocktails, including flammable materials. The crossing was closed and a bomb disposal expert was called in the area to secure the scene. All of the suspects were transferred to the Border Police units for questioning. The units prevented an attack from taking place and police and border police operations continue in all areas. ["Terror attack in Jerusalem foiled", Israel National News, July 4, 2017]

(We would spell the name of the checkpoint Mizmoriah - מחסום מזמוריה. It's adjacent to the thriving Jerusalem neighbourhood of Har Homa on Jerusalem's south side.)

Thank goodness for Israel's security checkpoints and alert security personnel.

09-Nov-15: Death of a knife attacker and the lethally selective way it's reported

The photo above, unrelated to the events at the Eliyahu security checkpoint, 
is what the editors at AFP chose to illustrate the report of today's 
knife attack by an unsuccessful Arab stabber [Source]

Here's the opening line of a major news report appearing at this moment on an English-language Palestinian Arab news site:

A Palestinian woman was shot-dead by Israeli soldiers this morning under the pretext that she tried to stab a border guard, at the Eliyahu military checkpoint in Qalqilya, northern West Bank. ["22-year-old woman shot-dead by soldiers at Eliyahu checkpoint, Qalqilya", Palestine News Network, November 8, 2015]. 

Under the pretext, they say. Pretext.

The French news agency AFP reports the same event today a little differently - and please take note of the photo above which accompanies their article:

A Palestinian woman attempted to attack Israeli security guards with a knife at a checkpoint in the north of the occupied West Bank on Monday before being shot dead, officials said. Two letters found in her bag indicated plans for a suicide attack, according to the ministry. Palestinian police identified her as Rasha Uweisseh, 23 and from Qalqilya... ["Palestinian woman attempts stabbing, shot dead: officials", AFP, November 8, 2015]

The rasha's suicide note [Source:
Jerusalem Post today]

That matter of letters in her bag indicating what AFP calls a "suicide attack" seems significant to us. The Jerusalem Post says the woman called Rasha set out to kill people in order "to defend the homeland and the youth". (Non-Hebrew speakers might be interested to know that the stabber's first name, "Rasha", is the Hebrew word for "evil person".)

Her letters are all over the Arabic-language social media today (Twitter tweets here, for example).

Knowing about the letters, more accurate terms to describe the events at the crossing this morning might be lethal attack, murderous attack, knifing attack, stabbing attack, or even just attack. Because one thing is perfectly clear in this case as in so many others: Miss Uweisseh of Qalqilya came to the checkpoint in order to kill someone. That she was indifferent to what might happen to her is probably true but not the point. This attack was about killing Jews, Israelis. The connection to suicide is incidental, secondary and misleading.

So on what basis does PNN claim the killing of the young woman was done on a "pretext"? Probably on the same basis that brings certain other parts of the media to frame the attempted murder of Israelis via a focus on the attacker's failure and death.

• "Israeli occupation forces on Monday shot dead a Palestinian woman at a checkpoint in the north of the occupied West Bank." [Opening line of news report by Lebanon's Al-Manar]
• "Palestinian woman allegedly attempts stabbing, shot dead" [Al Arabiya's headline]
• "Shot at a checkpoint in the West Bank" [Headline of a report on the attack in the Icelandic news channel Morgunbladid]
• "Palestinian girl shot by Israelis" [Headline of a Persian-language report on the PressTV, Iran, website]
• "Palestinian woman killed after alleged attack at Qalqiliya checkpoint http://bit.ly/1SbsgJj  #palestine" [Tweeted by the Pal Arab Ma'an News Agency, here]
• And entirely predictably, the propagandists of Hamas via their Twitter account say: "#IOF forces execute Palestinian lady Rasha Al Ewasi, 23, at a military checkpoint east of #Qalqilya city. #WestBank"
• BBC Arabic's report [here] of the attacker's death is mysteriously silent about the letters she left behind. No mention of them at all. 

To the surprise of no informed observer, the dead woman has already been proclaimed a "martyr" by the Palestinian Arab media machine [here] whose accounts of how she was "shot dead in cold blood" will ensure a steady flow of more such attacks and deaths. Mission accomplished.

The selective reporting of the manner of her death and what brought her to carry out the attack are critical components of the incitement and brain-washing that make this possible. It's part of a process that deserves to be called what it is: lethal journalism.

11-Aug-15: Still more stabbings of Israelis - wait, no, thankfully this one was intercepted

The suspect in custody yesterday: just a 17 year old girl and
already terminally crippled by violent hatred [Image Source]

Living in a terrorism-rich environment makes people like us a touch impatient with the occasional calls for our side to treat the neighbours with greater respect - relax those oppressive security arrangements, take down the checkpoints, give women, and especially teenage girls the leeway they are entitled to, and so on.

Keeping those sentiments, here's a news report from the Jerusalem Post that will probably not have made it to news channels outside our borders:

An unidentified Palestinian youth was detained Monday after admitting that she intended to use a knife, found in her hand bag during a search at a checkpoint, to commit a terror attack at an Israeli prison. The suspect, 17, who attempted to pass through a checkpoint south of Hebron, initially claimed that she forgot that the knife was in her possession and that its use was for cutting vegetables. Under interrogation in Hebron, she admitted that she intended to use the knife to stab a female prison officer at Eshel prison, where her brother lectures inmates who are serving sentences for security related offenses... On Saturday Hamas publicly called for widespread attacks against Israelis. "The murderous settlers will not be deterred unless we initiate attacks - do not wait for them to arrive in our villages and towns,"  said Hamas spokesperson Husma (sic) Badran. Since then several attacks have been carried out. ["Palestinian arrested after admitting 'vegetable knife' was meant for terror attack", Jerusalem Post, August 11, 2015]

Just to recap: she's 17, a girl. Her weapon, a knife, is of the kind that has caused the deaths of many innocent Israelis. And there's a fresh general call in the air from the savages of Hamas to do precisely the murderous thing she confesses to planning to do.

Rational human beings will be all in favour of more and stronger security measures - like checkpoints, fences, and alert, well-trained and armed security personnel - to intercept jihad-minded Arabs from doing what the echo chamber in which they live is instructing them to do. This probably offends some people, but life is too short and too sacred to pay attention to their foolishness.

Husam Badran, mentioned in the report above, is the Hamas spokesperson most closely aligned with the ongoing calls for more acts of murder against Israelis:

"[T]he shootings... and the stabbing operations that have been carried out by lone men and women represent an important development..." Hamas, he said, “welcomes these actions... an important and positive step towards returning to the natural state in which we must fight the occupation directly until it is defeated... it will not be long before the [West] Bank returns to the days of the Aqsa Intifada.” [From a June speech by Badran reported in Algemeiner]

Incitement doesn't come much clearer or lethal than that. Thankfully, there are people on our side who understand the implications.

12-Feb-14: Checking people at the crossings: context can make all the difference

Image Source: BBC this morning

Context, it is sometimes said, is everything.

We live in a country with a strongly multi-ethnic mix. The same for the city in which we make our home. Tragically, a significant number of certain parts of that mix have murder - literal, life-ending homicide - on their minds a great deal of the time.

Our political leadership along with the security establishment know that. So protective measures, calibrated as much as possible to minimize inconveniencing the innocent, are in place to keep the intending killers from their targets.

This tends to be reported in a very unfriendly way by parts of the reporting industry. They use words like apartheid, racism, land-theft and illegal.

As a family whose tranquility was permanently ended by an act of murder some years ago, we stay focused on the good that protective measures can bring. We try not to let the hypocritical reporting, often done by people who would never dream of allowing their own loved ones to be exposed to the evil plottings of human savages without aggressively pre-empting, upset us too much.

Occasionally, that hypocrisy becomes so plain that almost anyone can see it. Whether this causes laughter, a sense of wry cynicism or straight-out anger probably depends on how it fits into your own personal context.

At the BBC, there's a report today about checkpoints. They have been put up by the military. The British military. Their intention is to check people. Some will be kept out. And most will be allowed to pass through. Which is alright because this is in order to save lives, right?

Perhaps not.

Our correspondent said that, with so many homes in the village evacuated, there was a real fear some of the empty properties might be looted so the Army had set up checkpoints on some roads to monitor overnight who comes and who goes. [BBC]

If you go to the source, you see it's about keeping property safe.

Chief Supt Matt Twist, of Surrey Police, said the flooding in the county was "unprecedented" and warned that a further 2,500 homes were at risk. [BBC]

Read the details here: "UK floods: More flooding fears as storms forecast". It went up in the past hour. Naturally, there's no reason to hold your breath waiting for a UN Security Council resolution.

That sounds silly, right? A UNSC resolution about a checkpoint that was only put up so to make it less likely that things would get purloined by opportunistic malevolents? 

Now call to mind how many Israeli lives have been stolen in the most violent way by people whose evil is, to a great extent, frustrated these days by a carefully designed and exquisitely implemented protective system, including check-points and the fences that connect them. 

How many lives do you guess have been saved by our check-points? None? Some? A lot? We will never really know for certain. But we do know about the lives that were not saved. You can see one of the faces connected to those lives below. That's our daughter.

Malki was 15 when her life was stolen from her and from us. She was talented musically and in so many other ways too. We remember her with unbearable longing. 

We often think, too, about the hypocrisy that lets people feel perfectly comfortable with self-defense measures that protect their microwave oven and golf clubs, but cannot comprehend how or why people like us want to keep our children's lives safe.

27-Mar-13: Instead of a minor footnote, this could have been today's main headline

IDF security checkpoint [Image Source]

It's a tiny story; insignificant really, except for those of us with some imagination... and personal experience. It very likely was not reported at all in the news channels which reach most of our readers. But it happened, and it has implications.

A Palestinian Arab male (at this stage, no further details) was stopped at the IDF security checkpoint at Bekaot, south-east of Sh'chem (Nablus) in the northern Jordan Valley yesterday (Tuesday), the first day of Passover.

The personnel manning the checkpoint found four improvised explosive devices (IEDs) on him [Times of Israel]. Army sappers safely detonated the IEDs in a controlled explosion. The man is in the custody of the security forces who have some questions for him.

Questions:

• If he had not been intercepted, would this story still be tiny and insignificant?
• If there were no IDF security checkpoints, would he have been stopped in some other way before those IEDs were emplaced and triggered, with who-knows-what devastating effect?
• Security checkpoints only work when people pass through them, and the security barrier remains - partly because of legal complexity and court cases - incomplete and under construction, meaning this guy could have avoided passing through. Is it better or worse for us if the security checkpoints exist? Assuming (as we believe) that it's better, what can the people who call for their removal, be thinking?

There is an upward trend in Palestinian Arab violence against Israelis (see today's Jerusalem Post backgrounder) as well as several similar life-saving intercepts at the same security checkpoint: for instance in August 2011 and twice in April 2012. 

None of this will mean very much to those, sitting far from what goes on here daily, who see such events in ideological, non-humanitarian terms. This is a great shame as well as a disgrace to the people who think that way.

But for those of us whose lives are directly impacted by whether or not terror-minded Palestinian Arab jihadists get through the protective cordon in order to wreak the devastation they seek, yesterday's seizure of concealed lethal weapons is reason to celebrate. 

As we mentioned: it's Passover. May the peacefulness continue, along with the watchfulness of those who protect us.

3-Oct-11: So do those security checkpoints serve their purpose or not?

Hawara checkpoint, some years ago

There's a report this afternoon (Monday) from the Hawara security checkpoint near Nablus.

IDF forces arrested a Palestinian Arab carrying a 10 centimeter long knife and an improvised gun. He is now being questioned by security officials over the possibility (as Ynet puts it) that he was intending to carry out a terror attack.

Notwithstanding the constant criticism from anti-Israel sources, Israel's part-constructed security barrier and its multiple checkpoints constitute one of this country's most effective counter-terrorism measures.

The numbers put this beyond doubt. That critics can - and obsessively do - call it an "Apartheid Wall" reveals something about the shortage of intellectual honesty in such attacks. The fact that the barrier and the checkpoints have had a clearly positive effect on terror statistics, greatly reducing deaths and injury on both sides, ought to be central to any discussion about them, but is not.

There's useful background on the issues in a monograph written by Prof. Gerald Steinberg called "The UN, the ICJ and the Separation Barrier: War by Other Means" [online here].

28-Sep-07: Why security checkpoints have to be there

From the Jerusalem Post this afternoon:

IDF soldiers arrested two Palestinians at the Bir Zayit checkpoint on Thursday night after finding two explosive devices in their car during a routine check. The explosives, which were ready for deployment, were detonated safely by army sappers. The two suspects were transferred to police for questioning.

They know the soldiers are there. They know the road runs into a security checkpoint. Yet they still get arrested, still carry their bombs, still pray for their 72 virgins. These are things you need to take into account when you formulate your position on the fateful question of what does a decent society have to do to protect itself from a barbarian onslaught.

A good Sabbath to all.

10-Oct-06: No one at the UN reads this blog. Here's the proof

Ignore our posting from yesterday about the two Pal-Arab men intercepted yesterday with bombs strapped to their bodies at an Israeli security checkpoint.

Ignore our posting of the day before about another Pal-Arab man shot after trying to stab Israelis at another Israeli security checkpoint.

Ignore everything you've heard about Palestinian Arab gunmen, children with bombs strapped to their undersized chests, women with kitchen knives slipped into the folds of their robes, Red Crescent ambulances with explosives hidden behind false floors -- all intercepted at Israeli checkpoints, en route to their destiny with death. Sometimes their own death; always the death of Jews.

Ignore them just as the United Nations does. This report issued today puts that matter beyond doubt.

Number of Israeli roadblocks in West Bank up 40 percent in past year: U.N.

The Associated Press
Published: October 11, 2006
JERUSALEM The number of Israeli military roadblocks in the West Bank grew by nearly 40 percent in the past year, part of an increasingly sophisticated lockdown that disrupts all aspects of Palestinian life, a U.N. aid agency said Wednesday. The placement of these checkpoints and unmanned physical obstacles means the West Bank is increasingly being carved up into separate parts, with travel between them becoming more and more difficult, said David Shearer, head of the U.N.'s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Jerusalem. In all, there were 528 checkpoints and obstacles in the West Bank, up from 376 in August 2005, Shearer said, presenting new statistics. The West Bank's Jordan Valley is now entirely off limits to Palestinians who are not residents of that area, except for those with permits to work in the valley's Jewish settlements. The checkpoints are multiplying as Israel pushes ahead with the separation barrier it is building along — and at some points inside — the West Bank. Some 50,000 Palestinians find themselves on the wrong side of the barrier, meaning they are cut off from the rest of the West Bank, the report said. Israel has also deepened the separation between the northern, middle and southern parts of the West Bank, the report said. "We are seeing a continuing closing down, locking down of Palestinian areas," he said. Shearer said tight travel restrictions were also in place during the height of the Palestinian uprising, between 2000-2003, when dozens of suicide bombers carried out attacks in Israel. "Since then it's become much more systematic, much more sophisticated in terms of monitoring Palestinian movement and closing Palestinian movement," he said. "The West Bank, for example, is effectively being chopped up into three big areas ... and there are pockets within those areas where people also can't move." Capt. Adam Avidan, spokesman for the military's civil administration in the West Bank, said in a statement that Israel tries "as much as possible to preserve the Palestinians' way of life and to avoid hurting innocent civilians in its war against terrorism."

The office responsible for putting out this appalling piece of one-eyed, one-sided pseudo-analysis is the United Nations Office for Co-ordinating Humanitarian Affairs.

Their Jerusalem operation costs the UN $3 million a year. Evidently an insufficient sum, since they are unable to find the time, the resources or the wit to analyze the daily small and large acts of terrorism directed at Jewish Israelis and the IDF security checkpoints that are strikingly effective at slowing down, stopping and intercepting jihadist terrorists.

How can self-respecting UN civil servants sign off on a report to their employers and not mention this effectiveness? Not a word.

Do they find the effectiveness of IDF security measures a threat to their outlook on life and political convictions? Do they not consider the saving of Israeli lives a matter worth including in a report of this scope? Are they oblivious to the blood-soaked consequences of such highly selective, prejudice-laden moral outrage?

Shame on them, shame on David Shearer and shame on the UN bureaucracy that plays along with this pretend-objectivity without protest.

10-Oct-06: Self-Slaughtering Murderers... Again

It's a little after 8 on a very pleasant Jerusalem evening. We're taking things easy at home, eating in the palm-roofed outdoor hut on our terrace (we're in the midst of the festival of Tabernacles).

Meanwhile at roadblocks all over this region, young Israeli men and women are manning security checkpoints, as they do 24 x 7 x 365, watching for that disturbing Palestinian Arab creation of self-slaughtering, religiously-inspired young men, hell-bent on getting to paradise by blowing up Jews.

Today, a small victory. A very quiet and small victory.

We say quiet because, as so often happens, the only news media interested in reporting on Palestinian terrorists that fail (as opposed to the well-covered stories where actual spilled Jewish blood takes centre-stage) are Israeli news media. Too, too, too boring for the rest.

IDF troops thwart attempted terror attack at West Bank checkpoint

Last update - 18:13 10/10/2006
By Amos Harel and Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondents, and Haaretz Service
Israel Defense Forces soldiers on Tuesday arrested two Palestinian youth attempting to carry out a suicide bombing attack near the West Bank city of Jenin. Military police troops searching the youths youths during a routine security check at the Rihan checkpoint found two pipe bombs weighing a kilogram each strapped to one of their bodies. Troops arrested the youths and sappers safely detonated the explosives. The youths told police during their investigation that they had been sent by Hamas militants to carry out the attack. This is the second attempted terror attack at a West Bank checkpoint in 24 hours. IDF troops on Monday shot dead a Palestinian youth who they said pulled out a knife and attacked a soldier at the Hawara checkpoint, south of Nablus.

Jenin: Terror attack thwarted

Two Palestinians raise officers' suspicion at Reihan Crossing, found to be carrying explosive devices. In interrogation, men admit they planned to throw bombs at troops
Efrat Weiss (Published: 10.10.06, 18:51)
The security forces thwarted a second terror attack in 24 hours, this time at the Reihan Crossing near Jenin. On Tuesday afternoon, two Palestinians who arrived at the crossing raised suspicion with the local Border Guard policemen manning the checkpoint. Following a search of the two, soldiers found two pipe bombs, weighing about one kilogram each. The crossing has been by the officers closed and the bombs were detonated in a controlled manner by Border Guard sappers. During an investigation of the incident, the two Palestinians said they intended on throwing the devices on the local forces. The Hawara checkpoint experiences an incident or an attempt to attack soldiers on daily basis.

Some points to ponder:

• The terrorists were caught at a security checkpoint. These are endlessly criticized by outsiders. They degrade. They humiliate. They delay. They ensure the continued hatred of Palestinian Arabs for Israel and for Israelis. All of these criticisms may be true. But they prevent deaths by terror - every single day. You don't have to be the parents of a child murdered by savages like those caught today (as we are - our daughter's murderer passed unhindered through a laid-back Israeli checkpoint on the day he carried out his massacre) to understand the importance of those security checks. A pity that so many journalists and their editors seem to ignore the almost daily snarings of terrorists that those checkpoints make possible.
• This successful intercept comes 24 hours after the last successful intercept of self-slaughtering Palestinian Arab terrorists with murder in mind. Did you read about it in your local or national paper? See it on the evening news? This latest event happened six or seven hours ago. It's currently reported (according to Google News) in precisely two global news channels: In Israel's Haaretz and in Israel's Yedioth Aharonot.
• By their own admission, the young religious fanatics were sent by Hamas - they control the government of the would-be state of Palestine. Remember this when you next hear how moderate and ready for peace Hamas is.
• As boring and uninteresting as it may be to report on foiled terror attacks, on lives saved and not blown away, the reports of terrorists intercepted en route to their barbaric mission are potentially much more important to ordinary readers of the news than the reports of massacres are. Terror is not a Middle East invention. Jihad is not directed at Israelis or Jews alone. There are lessons to be learned from the systems and methods Israel has put in place to deflect the savages of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and the rest. What is it about these reports that your news people don't want you to know?

We'll go back to eating our dinner now. Have a good evening.

6-Sep-06: Reduction in Force 17

Nearly six years ago, on 30th October 2000, a young part-time security guard employed to protect the National Insurance Institute offices in East Jerusalem was gunned down in cold blood at almost point-blank range by Palestinian Arab terrorists. The office he guarded is the conduit for vast sums in monthly pension payments made to East Jerusalem Arabs under Israel's unemployment, single-parent and other social welfare programs.

The young man, Esh-Kodesh Gilmore, was the father of an eighteen-month-old daughter and the son of gentle American-born parents whom we subsequently came to know - when we lost our own daughter to an act of terrorist murder - and whom we are proud to call our friends. Some background about Esh-Kodesh's short life is here.

Three Palestinian Arabs were subsequently caught, charged and convicted of the terrorist murder. They are Talal Ghassan, 37, a senior Force 17 member from Ramallah; Marzouk Abu Naim, 43; and Na'man Nofel. The Jerusalem Post reported that, when arrested, the three were planning to execute additional attacks on the Ramallah bypass road and in and near Jerusalem. Abu Naim was good enough to lead his interrogators to two bombs which the cell had prepared for use.

The three terrorists in turn fingered Mahmoud Damra as the leader of their Ramallah-based terror cell. That cell, according to reports based on Israeli intelligence, was made up of members from all parts of the Palestinian terror constellation including Fatah and Hamas. It murdered seven Israelis in addition to Esh-Kodesh Gilmore, and managed to wound 20 more.

When Yasser Arafat was first holed up in his Ramallah headquarters in 2002 (see this report from The Guardian) during Operation Defensive Shield which was Israel's response to the string of massacres by Palestinians in Israel during Passover 2002, Damra was one of the fifty-plus terrorist fugitives who fled there to hide from the Israelis behind Arafat's skirts. This was an effective strategy, and enabled Damra to remain on the run. He has been on Israel's most-wanted list ever since.

On 31st May 2006, the "moderate" head of Fatah and the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, appointed Damra (known also by the nom-de-guerre Abu Awad) to the leadership of Force-17, the so-called presidential guard, a thuggish, well-equipped gang formed to provide the Palestinian Arab despot Arafat with personal protection, and now doing the same for Arafat's successor. Force 17 has also become a key element in the internecine wars between Fatah and Hamas. In the interests of full disclosure, UPI quoted Palestinian sources saying that Damra is no terrorist, that he's committed to "the peace process" and that suggesting he's involved with terror is all just a big misunderstanding.

Denials notwithstanding, it's good to be able to see reports tonight that Mahmoud Damra's life on the run went through a fundamental re-alignment today. He was arrested trying to get through an Israel Defense Forces roadblock outside Nablus. We've mentioned numerous times how media critics of Israeli roadblocks denigrate their importance to the war against terrorists... but time and again, that's where the big and ugly fish get intercepted and taken out of the game. Yediot Aharonot reports tonight that

"...a senior Palestinian official, who is a close associate of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, defined Damra's arrest as a "despicable act." The official said that "while Abu Mazen (Abbas) is exerting supreme efforts to solve the Gilad Shalit affair and advance the process, Olmert and Peretz are attempting to move things backwards."

We admit to being somewhat unsure about the process they refer to.

Our satisfaction with the arrest of this barbarian is tempered only by the knowledge that there appears to be a deal underway today for the release of hundreds of Palestinian terror practitioners. It remains to be seen whether the names of cold-blooded murders like Damra are on the list.

UPDATE: Not a happy ending - see "5-Jan-12: What the blood-soaked career of an "adviser on local government matters" reveals about the 'moderate' PA leader's thinking"

5-Jun-06: Carving a Solution

Scene at an Israeli security checkpoint (Click for more)

With stabbings of Israeli civilians by Palestinians a constant danger, 60 knives are found in a Palestinian vehicle passing through an IDF checkpoint outside Tul Karem. Machsom Watch and the journalists who routinely excoriate Israel for its belligerent preoccupation with security will ignore the report. 

Fortunately portions of the Israeli media do not. Perhaps you need to be the parents (as we are) of a child murdered by a terrorist who passed through an IDF security checkpoint that same day without hindrance to be sensitive to this issue.

May 16 to 31, 2006 Chronicle of Attacks

2006-05-31	Children in a Sderot school during a missile attack drill: a daily reality in this small town within firing range of the thugs of Gaza. The first Qassam missile - a steel tube filled with explosives - crashed into Sderot in February 2002. They have become a daily occurrence, and regularly kill and maim civilians. Sderot has no military bases but several schools and kindergartens. 4 Missiles: Around 6 this morning (and so far unreported by a single media channel outside Israel, according to Google), 4 separate Qassam missile strikes hit the southern town of Sderot. One explodes in an apartment building, injuring 2 people who require hospitalization and causing serious damage. One strikes - and explodes - a cluster of cooking gas cannisters in the courtyard of a residential building. One lands near Kibbutz Or Ha-ner causing damage, and a fourth lands in an open space. Though the Gaza Strip is frequently described (wrongly) as the most crowded place on earth, the terrorists who fire missiles like these daily manage to do so free of interference from anyone (police, army, Force 17, security militia) on the Palestinian side of the border who all appear to have a speck of dust in their collective eyes. Israeli forces have the capacity to pulverize the vicinity of the launching areas (which is also where the terrorists most likely live) with artillery or aerial weaponry, but choose not to because of the risk of civilian losses among the Palestinians. If you or your children lived in Sderot (not occupied territory, never disputed), could you make sense of that? UPDATE Islamic Jihad takes responsibility and promises more rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.
2006-05-30	Missiles: Two more Qassam landings around noon; no reports of injuries or damage. The missiles strike near Kibbutz Karmiyah and Kibbutz Zikim, dispatched by Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip.
2006-05-30	Home-made: Qassam and other lethal projectiles are fired into Israel multiple times each day in this current hot phase of the ongoing war waged by the Palestinian Arabs. Associated Press photographer Hatem Moussa took this picture (at right; others here) which gives some useful insight. AP's caption says it's of Palestinians taking away the body of a militant killed while preparing to fire a missile (on the left) into Israel. AP calls the missile home-made. Why? Does this change anything? Or are they simply trying to fraudulently elicit some sympathy from the viewer? And with whom was this anonymous militant affiliated? Islamic Jihad? Maybe one of the Fatah 'action' brigades? The PA police perhaps? Was he a Hamas 'activist'? It matters not one bit. The distinctions between one terror group and another exist to advance a lazy and false narrative: weak Palestinians, strong Israelis, Hamas-honoring-a-truce. We've met many journalists passing through Jerusalem; hard to believe any of them can tell the difference between a terrorist from one Palestinian terror faction or another. They simply pass along whatever their local sources tell them. And a Hamas truce? A ceasefire? It's a journalistic fiction in the service of Hamas and some misplaced sense of defending an underdog cause. As you view today's news pictures of grieving Palestinian relatives wailing photogenically over the bodies of 'militants' permanently prevented by Israeli fire from shooting off their 'home-made' missiles, ask yourself what these missiles are designed to do; and what, other than luck and forceful Israeli action, is preventing them from doing even more damage. And finally why did reporters and their editors give virtually zero coverage to last week's 'home-made' missile that destroyed an Israeli school classroom? (Our report on that is here.) That Israeli school-children were not blown to pieces that day is a miracle... which was certainly not the intention of the barbarians and their home-made hatred.
2006-05-29	Mortars: Palestinian terrorists this evening lob mortar shells over the Gaza border. One lands near an army base in the western Negev, causing damage but thankfully no injuries. Another lands in an open area. (This was not their intention.)
2006-05-29	Crossing: Karni is the name of the main crossing point where Israeli goods pass into Gaza. It has been attacked by Arab terrorists multiple times with considerable loss of life. When Israel learns of an impending attack on it, as has happened routinely during the past year, and shuts it down temporarily, the howls of protest from the media and foreign politicians are deafening since closing Karni means suffering for the people of Gaza. Chris McGreal for instance routinely does this in the pages of the influential British daily, The Guardian. Last Thursday, under the headline "How can people live, I wonder?" he wrote: "The Israeli government has justified the persistent closure of Karni with what it said was intelligence about impending attacks. Others are sceptical." The trouble is, Israel's fears are seriously real and the McGreals of this world, about the intelligence of whose reporting we are skeptical, are never called to account for their agenda-driven mischief. Today provides an example. 3 Palestinians are spotted this morning attempting to scale the security barrier in the vicinity of Karni. Taking no unnecessary risks, IDF forces shoot to kill. One of the Palestinians dies; two others flee. On the body of the dead man there is a Kalashnikov rifle and a ladder nearby. He turns out to be an 'activist' 'militant' 'resistance fighter' of the Popular Resistance Committees. His death qualifies in Palestinian terms for 'martyrdom' since he was engaged in planting explosives at the security fence. Mothers of sick Gaza children unable to get adequate food or medicine because of Karni's closure might not entirely approve of his new sanctified status. ("Supply shortages spark health crisis in Gaza" NY Times 8-May-06, for instance.) But who listens to them? Certainly not Hamas or the PA.
2006-05-29	Terror: As of this morning, there are 80 general terror warnings in effect. 15 are classified as specific alerts. Most relate to the Islamic Jihad organization.
2006-05-29	Israeli infantry soldier on duty in the Nablus area this week Thwarted: Israelis are focused on the troubled northern border with Lebanon this morning. But to remind us that the threat is relentless and constant, the authorities hold multiple concrete warnings of terror attacks, leading the IDF to throw up sudden roadblocks in key locations. As a result, 2 Palestinians are stopped this morning at one such checkpoint near Nablus. They arouse the suspicion of the young soldiers manning the post and attempt to flee. They are subdued after flinging their bag away which turns out to be packed with explosives for an intended terror attack against civilians. Explosives safely disposed of; terrorists (bomber and driver) safely behind bars. No apology yet from Machsom Watch or other critics of Israel's security checkpoint policy.
2006-05-28	Israelis sitting out missile attacks in a bomb shelter on Kibbutz Menara, northern Israel today. Border Alight: The cold-blooded Hizbullah strategy which has caused so much misery in Israel's north in past years is being played out again - with predictable results. This morning, in addition to the Katyusha attack we reported earlier, Hezbullah launch large-scale attacks right along the Israel-Lebanon border including additional Katyusha firings on communities and military bases plus mortar shells and sniper and machine gun fire attacks. Heavy fire is currently being exchanged. There are casualties and property loss. Developing. UPDATE: Sunday evening, a wide swathe of towns in the north from Kiryat Shmona to the coastal resort of Nahariya are in danger of missile strikes. Thousands of residents are ordered into the bomb shelters this evening. Lebanon meanwhile pours scorn on a 'warlike' Israel while media headline writers reach for the familiar context-free cliches: "Israel bombs militant targets in Lebanon"; "Islamic Jihad denies claim it attacked Israel"; "Islamic Jihad claims rocket attack on north Israel"; and so on.
2006-05-28	Northern Exposure: A Sunday morning barrage of three (at least) Katyusha missiles lands in the Safed area, reminding us Israelis that we are surrounded by barbarians in every direction. Two people are lightly injured today; there is property damage. Palestinian terror groups have carried out many such attacks in the past, in particular Hezbollah whose terrorists periodically fire the rockets at Israeli targets, and are reported to have stockpiled many thousands of Katyushas. The last such attack from the north was on 3-Feb-06. Three background notes of importance: (1) Today's rockets land a few kilometers further south than in any previous attack from Lebanon is known to have landed in Israel. (2) Earlier this month, a Palestinian woman was intercepted by Israeli security smuggling electronics, instructions and specifications for assembling explosives (including reference to Katyushas) and for carrying out terror attacks. (3) Palestinian terrorists in the south have fired Katyusha missiles into Israel on 3 occasions since March 2006.
2006-05-27	Missile Attack: A Qassam missile crashes into the small agricultural community of Kfar Maimon this evening. Fortunately no injuries. (This was not the intention of those who fired it from the Gaza Strip.)
2006-05-27	Stabbing: A Jewish teenager, 14, is stabbed in the back by a Palestinian next to Damascus Gate in Jerusalem's Old City late on Sabbath afternoon. His injuries are light. (This was not the intention of the attacker.)
2006-05-27	Withdrawal Part 2: Yesterday we expressed our skepticism about widespread media reports of Hamas withdrawing its new 'special forces' from the streets of Gaza. Tonight, it's reported they're back on those streets.
2006-05-26	Withdrawal?: The media are afroth this afternoon about a reported Hamas decision to "withdraw its special police forces from tension areas where clashes with the official Palestinian security forces have been taking place in recent days". We reported their initial deployment two weeks ago. Have a look at the AFP picture at right, a snapshot of the very well-armed Hamas 'special forces' in action against their Fatah brethren this week. Recall that Hamas have vowed never to disarm any members of the "resistance". And then ask yourself: (a) if these gun-toting thugs are being withdrawn, where are they withdrawing to? And (b) what is being done with the weapons that were plainly issued to them? Then note for yourself that this question has not been asked or answered by any of today's media reports. Instead, the excitement of Hamas 'scaling down' the violence by a 'withdrawal' dominates the region's news. How quickly people forget what the terrorists actually want.
2006-05-26	It Continues: A Qassam is fired into Israel again this morning. It lands in an orchard causing property damage but no injuries. (This was not the intention of those who fired it.) Elsewhere this morning, a routine inspection at an IDF checkpoint near Bethlehem turns up a Palestinian carrying a 15 centimeter knife, en route to places where Israelis can be found.
2006-05-25	Missiles: Two Qassam rockets are fired into Israel early this morning. No injuries reported. (This was not the intention of those who fired them.)
2006-05-24	Checkpoints Work: Despite endless criticism of IDF security checkpoints (calling them a form of collective punishment for instance) by people whose lives are not threatened by government-sponsored Palestinian terror, you just can't escape the fact that they do what they're supposed to do. Tonight, IDF soldiers manning a checkpoint north of Nablus spot a Kalashnikov rifle (archive picture right) in a Palestinian car. Weapon seized; owner arrested; lives saved.
2006-05-23	Seven people were murdered, 30 injured, when Ibrahim Hamed's gang attacked Jerusalem's Cafe Hillel on Emek Refaim Street in 2003. To paraphrase the BBC's Caroline Hawley: Why would the murderer of the saintly Dr David Applebaum and his daughter Nava who was to be married the next day, have to be arrested - now? We feel the question tells more about the person asking than about the moral or strategic issue it raises. Klotz Kashe?: The BBC features prominently in this blog's Hall of Shame. Illustrating the harm caused by uncritical media parroting of the "Hamas is having a truce" nonsense, the BBC's Caroline Hawley writes "...it is not clear why the army have moved against Hamad now..." which is what they did so brilliantly yesterday against one of the most notorious terror practitioners alive. After all, says Ms Hawley, "Hamas has not carried out any suicide attacks for 15 months..." On the run for the past 8 years, Ibrahim Hamad has murdered dozens of Israelis; he is among the most hardened and brutal murderers in this brutal and cruel war. Hamed's gang and the suits (like Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader) who provide its political facade don't deny that terrorism is one of the tools at their disposal, a tool they regard as legitimate. Yet the BBC's Ms Hawley still wonders why an army charged with protecting Israeli society after more than 1,100 murders-by-terrorists in five years might want to arrest Hamed... now. A better question is why the BBC would knowingly provide a platform for naive and dangerous views like Ms. Hawley's. Perhaps someone might explain to her how, ultimately, people's lives are placed at mortal risk by such moral and political befuddlement.
2006-05-23	Red Alert: A "hot" warning is issued this evening by the security forces throughout the center of the country. This includes the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway and Highway 443. Warnings of this kind are issued when intelligence information is obtained pointing to a specific terrorist en route to a specific location or region.
2006-05-23	AP today distributes this pic of the murderer's mother with his portrait at the family home in Silwad, near Ramallah. AP failed, for the moment at least, to offer any photos of the mothers of Hamed's victims. Freshly Retired: Ibrahim Hamed is not a household name. Perhaps he ought to be. He has been on Israel's most-wanted list for years. As head of Hamas's West Bank terror operation - called the Izzedine al Qassam gang - he claimed credit for the murders of dozens of Israelis. That career is now on hold: he is captured alive today near Ramallah by Israeli security forces, and emerges from his hideout dressed only in his underwear, according to the BBC. 'Suicide rather than capture' is evidently meant for other people's children.
2006-05-21	It Continues: At least one more Qassam rocket lands around 8pm tonight in the western Negev. Fortunately no injuries.
2006-05-21	Still More: Another Qassam rocket fired from Gaza lands at about 6pm near Zikim in Israel's western Negev. And for anyone wondering if the Palestinian leadership understands the moral depravity involved in lobbing lethal explosives over the fence into people's back yards and school grounds, the Palestinian president provides the answer in a little-reported quote today. Speaking on May 15, 2006, Mahmoud Abbas said: "The futile firing of missiles needs to be stopped, [as they] mostly just give Israel a pretext to escalate its aggression against our citizens in the Gaza Strip." Who says the "moderate" Palestinian Arab leadership entirely lacks a moral compass?
2006-05-21	Today's Qassam crashed through the wall of the school, and landed in an empty classroom without exploding (Ynet) More Rockets: Two more Qassams (for a total of 3) this morning in the Sderot neighborhood; one falls harmlessly, the other crashes into a yeshiva (school) classroom. It's Sunday here, a regular working day in Israel, and all the pupils are temporarily out of their classroom when the Qassam strikes, having their morning prayers in the school's chapel (beit midrash). So instead of this being a report about a massacre of children, it turns out to be just another in the hundreds of reports of missiles fired by attempted murderers on civilian targets in Israel while their government, the Hamas-controlled PA, looks on, probably smiling. The students are terrified by the near-catastrophe; the parents rush to school to take them home; the army's sappers arrive to deal with the explosives; and the rest of us are left wondering how long our luck can hold out. Outside of Israel, mainstream media gave it barely a passing mention because, after all, no blood flowed, so almost none of your friends even knows it happened. And when Israeli forces eventually do identify the people who did today's planning, financing and firing, and - hopefully - find the right way to permanently prevent them from executing cold-blooded acts of terror like this one again, news report consumers from Oslo to Osaka are going to wonder when those Israelis are going to finally stop their "aggression" against the "poor", "defenseless" Palestinians. Accurate and contextual reporting does matter.
2006-05-21	Rockets: A Qassam lands this morning at Tzomet Gevim, just outside Sderot. When the terrorists fire these deadly weapons, they pray for maximum damage to Israeli lives and property. Today's result: two civilian victims of shock. Thankfully, that's all.
2006-05-20	Current Warnings: As of tonight, Israel's security forces (police, army, border police) are aware of 83 concurrent terror-attack warnings, 16 of them classified as 'concrete' (red alerts). Most originate in the northern Samaria district, mainly in Nablus. We believe it is impossible to understand the security measures Israel puts in place without knowing about these constant threats. So why is this never reported in your newspapers or TV news?
2006-05-20	Pisgat Zeev's shopping mall in Jerusalem's northern suburbs Stabber: Our daughter was murdered in a Jerusalem pizza restaurant at a time - August 2001 - when few seriously believed there was a need for, or much that could be expected from, security guards posted outside stores, malls, theatres and restaurants. But almost every day since then, someone, somewhere in Israel has been stopped by alert security guards and prevented from carrying out the next headline-grabbing terror attack. Tonight it is the turn of the Pisgat Zeev shopping mall on Jerusalem's north side. A Palestinian man, 19, is stopped at the entrance to the mall after attracting the attention of the guards and prevented from entering. He pulls a 30 cm (12 inch) knife from his underwear and screams while waving the knife and trying to stab whomever he can. He is subdued, taken away by police and confesses to having come with Jew-stabbing on his mind. Fortunately tonight will not be his big night.
2006-05-19	Hawara checkpoint, near Nablus: Daily inconvenience to one side; daily threat of murder and maiming to the other Transitioning: The Hawara checkpoint, south of Nablus, is the largest security cross-over in the West Bank. This morning, a Palestinian passing through under the eye of Israeli security forces is stopped and found to have four pipe-bombs and a 20cm knife stashed into his pants (Hebrew bulletin here). An entire literature exists - mainly of the protest, outrage, defamation and vilification variety - to describe Israel's self-defense strategy at these crossings. For instance Machsom Watch (machsom is Hebrew for barrier): try to find even a single mention there of terrorists prevented from carrying out their evil plans. (But if you're looking for rudeness and superficiality, you'll find plenty of that there.) Though this happens routinely, daily in some places, the people who want you to know how really rude and insensitive it is of Israel to impose these military checkpoints on the Palestinians become deathly quiet whenever attempted murders are frustrated there. And they are, constantly. Nablus is now the nerve center of Palestinian terror; a Jerusalem Post report says "nightly raids carried out by IDF troops in Nablus and the nearby refugee camps [are what keep] suicide terrorists out of Israel's cities". Matters to some; utterly irrelevant to others.
2006-05-18	Shooting: An Israeli couple are shot this evening by Palestinian Arab gunmen near the town of Tapuah. The man is moderately wounded; his wife lightly injured. They continue driving to Tapuah Junction, where they receive medical treatment before being transferred to a hospital. The al-Aqsa Brigades, loyal to Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah, take responsibility.
2006-05-18	Missile Barrage: Six more Qassam rockets are fired this afternoon from the northern Gaza Strip (let's be clear: from areas abandoned by Israel in the name of peace last summer) into Israel. One lands near "a strategic facility"; one falls just outside an IDF base at Zikim. Fortunately no one injured - but that was not the intention. Meanwhile the Jerusalem area where we live has been the subject of two separate "concrete warnings" of a terror attack today - still in effect as we write this. UPDATE: The terror alert is removed this evening but only after large security contingents are first deployed throughout the city, with roadblocks on the main highway to Tel-Aviv, in northern Jerusalem and at French Hill Junction.
2006-05-17	Live television coverage of the Fatah/Hamas clashes Cops Again: Yesterday we noted the new terrorist "security" force formed by Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, the PA's president, today vetoes its establishment; Hamas responds by announcing the immediate deployment of the force, confirming that these are nothing more than terrorist thugs operating under a different public relations cover; no need to prepare uniforms, training or other clap-trap. Violence has been escalating in Gaza since Hamas won the March elections; there are daily casualties among both Hamas and Fatah. All of this is fuelled by a power struggle between Abbas and the Hamas Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniyeh. Haaretz says "A key area of dispute is control over the security forces." So much control, so much dispute, so little security.
2006-05-16	Lawlessness in Gaza has been a fact of life for decades. Now civil war seems to be brewing Good Cop, Bad Cop: Leveraging its bogus status as “truce” observer, Hamas has announced a new paramilitary force made up of 3,000 re-purposed terrorist 'militants'. The initiative’s surreal blend of terror and law enforcement earns a compelling analysis by Matthew Gutman in USA Today, quoting one of the recycled 'cops': “For us it is the same, defending Palestine (by attacking Israel) and ending the chaos. We are serving the Palestinian people.” Fancifully titled the Security Forces Support System, the Hamas creation is headed by Jamal Abu Samhadana, a notorious terrorist long on the run from the Israelis. With an appalling list of barbaric outrages to his name and blood on his hands, he is at the top of Israel’s “most-wanted” list. He told the Telegraph (UK): "We have only one enemy and that is the Jews," but that's alright because his force "will also act against corruption and lawbreakers". The formation of this Hamas force, and the choice of its head, are seen as an exercise in muscle-flexing and perhaps a precursor to full-scale civil war with other power blocs, notably Fatah. USA Today quotes an Israeli analyst with an eye for the economic efficiency of the new Hamas business model: “It can provide law and order in the morning and terrorism in the evening.” Which conveniently leaves their nights free.
2006-05-16	Rockets: Nativ Ha'asara, a small farming community near Gaza, comes under rocket attack again at 5 this morning. A Katyusha missile (much more accurate and much longer range than the usual Qassam) narrowly misses a residence, damaging a chicken coop and greenhouses, and killing livestock. The goal of Islamic Jihad who took credit was, of course, to kill Israelis and not poultry. No one on their side of the fence stopped or bothered them; this is the normal condition of Israel's Gaza border with the Palestinian Authority. Katyushas are familiar to Israelis living on Israel's border with Lebanon where Hezbollah has made liberal use of them for terror purposes for years. Both Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are sponsored by Iran.