Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

IDF deploys tanks in West Bank for first time since 2002, sending 3 to Jenin as it expands op

2025-02-24

[IsraelTimes] Defense minister says he instructed army to stay ‘for coming year’ in West Bank refugee camps and not allow 40,000 displaced Palestinians home

Israeli tanks deployed to the West Bank on Sunday morning for the first time in over 20 years, as the Israel Defense Forces said it was expanding an ongoing counter-terrorism operation in the north of the territory.

Defense Minister Israel Katz, meanwhile, said he had instructed the IDF to stay for at least the next year in West Bank refugee camps that have been cleared of terror operatives and civilians, and not allow some 40,000 displaced Paleostinians to return.

Paleostinian media outlets published images showing three Merkava tanks near the West Bank city of Jenin.

The IDF confirmed the reports a short while later, saying that a platoon from the 188th Armored Brigade was preparing to operate in Jenin "as part of the offensive effort." An Armored Corps platoon normally consists of two or three tanks.

It marked the first time since the 2002 Operation Defensive Shield that IDF tanks were operating in the West Bank.

The military said the tank deployment came as it expanded its ongoing major offensive in the northern West Bank, dubbed Operation Iron Wall, which was launched on January 21.

As part of the expanded activity, troops of the Nahal Infantry Brigade and the Duvdevan Commando Unit began operations in several villages near Jenin, the military said.

The deployment of tanks and expanded operations come after three empty buses went kaboom! in quick succession in parking lots in the Tel Aviv suburbs of Bat Yam and Holon on Thursday night and the discovery of two more unwent kaboom! devices on additional buses in Holon. No casualties were reported as a result of the earth-shattering kabooms. According to officials, the botched attack originated from the West Bank.

In a written statement Sunday, Katz said: "40,000 Paleostinians have so far evacuated from the Jenin, Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps, and are now empty of residents. UNRWA activity in the camps has also been stopped."

He said the IDF was clearing "nests of terror" and destroying infrastructure and weapons "on an extensive scale."

"I instructed the IDF to prepare for a long stay in the camps that were cleared, for the coming year, and not allow residents to return and the terror to return and grow," Katz said.

"We will not return to the reality that was in the past. We will continue to clear refugee camps and other terror centers to dismantle the battalions and terror infrastructure of the extreme Islam that was built, armed, funded, and supported by the Iranian evil axis, in an attempt to establish an eastern terror front," he added.

The IDF’s crackdown on terror groups began days after a ceasefire agreement was reached in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
Strip, and following recent activity against the groups by the Ramallah-based Paleostinian Authority.

The operation began in the terror hotbed of Jenin, which has seen dozens of raids since the Hamas
Hamas

..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel from Gaza, which sparked the ongoing war in that territory, as well as a renewed effort to combat terror groups in the West Bank. Israeli forces have since pushed into several other nearby towns, including Tulkarem.

More than 40,100 Paleostinians have left their homes since the launch of Operation Iron Wall, according to UNRWA.

Humanitarian officials say they haven’t seen such displacement in the West Bank since the Six Day War, when Israel — under threat from Jordan, Egypt, Syria and other Arab countries — captured the West Bank, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, displacing 300,000 Paleostinians.

Troops have killed more than 70 Paleostinian terror operatives and detained some 300 amid the major ongoing counter-terrorism operation, according to the IDF.

The IDF has acknowledged mistakenly killing several civilians during the operation, including a toddler and a pregnant woman.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

On both sides of Gaza’s border, the IDF is remaking security from the (under)ground up

2024-03-24

Consequences. None of this was seen to be needed on October 6th.

[IsraelTimes] From a buffer zone to attack drones and more troops, the army plans to keep Israel safe by taking a zero-tolerance approach to tunnel building or any other disturbance.

Fewer than two kilometers (1.2 miles) separates the towns of Khuza’a from Kibbutz Nir Oz. The land between the Gazook and Israeli communities is taken up by a patchwork of neat farm fields and a fence that Hamas
Hamas

...the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood,...
commandos from Khuza’a tore through with ease on October 7. The turbans of Hamas’s elite Nukhba force that invaded Nir Oz made the journey from Khuza’a in minutes, equipped with maps and cycle of violences. Hours later, they left behind a demolished kibbutz soaked in the blood of 38 slain victims, taking 77 hostages with them.

To ensure such horrors never occur again, the army, while fighting a war inside Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
, is also fundamentally reconceiving how it defends Israel, especially the towns closest to the Paleostinian enclave.

The process will see the military shift away from more passive defensive measures to the adoption of a security doctrine that will see Gazooks pushed away from the border and a beefed-up force along the fence actively engaged in keeping Israeli towns safe by building deterrence, according to a well-placed defense source who briefed The Times of Israel on the development of plans for securing the border with Gaza. The source spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Standing near the barrier separating Khuza’a from Israel on Monday, echoes of gunfire and explosions could be heard from battles taking place in Khan Younis, just a few kilometers to the west.

Nir Oz is hard to miss from the Gazook side of the fence. Even from the town of Abasan, a bit deeper inside Gaza, the kibbutz’s paint factory, Nirlat, is perenially visible.

A walk through the farmland near the fence outside Khuza’a and Abasan can feel misleadingly pastoral, until one notices markers placed by Israel Defense Forces troops to indicate the entrance to a tunnel.

The underground passage is what the IDF terms as an "approach tunnel" — it begins at the first line of houses in Khuza’a and leads to the fence.

The opening of this particular tunnel, just a few dozen paces from the fence, was discovered by chance when smoke began to rise from the ground following an ~~Arclight~~ airstrike
...KABOOM!...
in an urban area elsewhere on the tunnel’s route.

Until the war, the IDF turned a blind eye to the construction of tunnels throughout the Strip due to a tacit agreement with Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar designed to de-escalate tensions. Israel estimates that there are hundreds of approach tunnels near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip, meant to allow terrorist cells to mount a surprise attack on the fence.

On October 7, however, Hamas turbans did not use the tunnels. Instead, they stormed the fence in plain sight, broke through the barrier in multiple locations and dashed toward Israeli towns uninterrupted.

An interrogation of a Hamas prisoner revealed that the plan was to use the tunnel system for a second wave of attackers, though in the end those who broke into Israel later on October 7 also did not need to bother hiding underground.

The tunnels were only used later when Israeli ground forces moved into the Gaza Strip, allowing Nukhba forces to attempt to sneak up on soldiers deep inside the enclave.

The IDF was surprised by the number of tunnels that were discovered, especially in the south of the Gaza Strip. Israeli intelligence knew Hamas had invested significant time and resources in the project, but underestimated its scope.

The army has found that Hamas built its subterranean warren in this area in an organized way, with a feeder tunnel deep inside Gaza connecting passages that stretch toward the border, allowing it to secretly move large numbers of forces toward Israel.

The system was seemingly built out from the remains of Hamas’s attack tunnel network that it used to mount sneak assaults inside Israel during the 2014 war. Though Israel destroyed much of that system, Hamas not only repaired it in the nine intervening years, but expanded it as well.

The IDF has said that a zero-tolerance approach to tunnel digging will be part of its post-war operational standards; any identification of tunnel digging will be immediately attacked on the ground or by air.

The source described the protocol as a "lawnmower working systematically over the next few years to nip any threat in the bud."

BUFFER ZONES
The Sisyphean task of destroying the tunnel network, which has fallen to the IDF’s Combat Engineering Corps, is part of a larger plan to create a buffer zone along the border. Officials are careful to use the term "buffer zone" and not "security zone" lest it harkens back to the southern Leb
...an Iranian satrapy currently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
security zone maintained by the IDF from 1985 to 2000 and regarded internationally as a military occupation.

The decision to create a buffer zone was made early in the war, after the events of October 7 led the military to conclude that an early warning apparatus relying on intelligence and surveillance was insufficient to protect Israeli towns near the Gaza border. Commanders in the field found that it would be necessary to shift away from passive defense to actively meeting each threat with a strong operational response.

Since receiving a green light from the government, the army has been working to clear a one-kilometer-wide (0.6-mile) strip of land running along the border, inside Gaza, for the buffer zone.

Besides destroying dozens of kilometers of tunnels, creating the zone includes clearing away any vegetation, including farm fields, and razing homes or other buildings.

The destruction is evident in Khuza’a, whose eastern edge practically kisses the border. Houses that sat only a few hundred meters (1,000 feet or more) from the fence before the war are now mostly reduced to rubble.

The army is still working on the administrative plan for the buffer zone: how it will look, what capabilities it will include, what the rules will be for opening fire on those who enter, and whether there will be a visible demarcation of where it begins.

The work is being done in conjunction with the military’s legal division, which may one day have to defend the decision to expropriate a chunk of land from the Gaza Strip.

OUTPOSTS, DRONES AND ARMED LOCALS
Along with the buffer inside Gaza, the IDF is planning moves that will fundamentally transform its defense posture on the Israeli side of the fence. In the past, the risk of an invasion from Gaza ranked near the bottom of what the IDF considered to be a probable threat. But now, it is the logical point to underpin a new defense doctrine, which will see a buildup of forces and the development of new operational protocols.

This will include a line of military outposts to be built along the fence and next to communities near the border, promising a massive military presence and immediate response to threats.

On the morning of October 7, there were four IDF battalions stationed along the border with Gaza, comprising a few thousand soldiers. That number will now double, if not more.

The military is also expediting existing plans to move the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade’s headquarters to a new building closer to its area of operation, rather than being commanded from the same base near Re’im where the Gaza Division and its other brigade is also headquartered. On October 7, turbans managed to pin down the division’s complete command structure by launching a massive assault on the base, disrupting its ability to coordinate an effective response to the multifaceted Hamas onslaught across the south.

Along with manpower, firepower will also be beefed up. Hamas’s explosive drones largely disabled IDF equipment stationed near the fence to surveil the border and to remotely fire at suspects approaching the border. Now, the army is looking to both improve those systems and add a large number of attack drones to the bag of tools at troops’ disposal, giving soldiers stationed on the border the ability to deploy air power before the Air Force can arrive.

Beyond that, the IDF is replanning its surveillance array, adding tools and allowing troops to control various surveillance systems from multiple places at the same time.

One plan already nearing implementation is the creation of a quick response counterterror reserves force made up of residents living near the Gaza border with experience in special forces. The unit is modeled on LOTAR Eilat, a counterterror unit made up of residents of the Red Sea city and others in the area, which has been called upon several times to respond to terror incidents before other forces could arrive.

The unit’s volunteers train once a week and engage in advanced training once a month. Permanent emergency teams within the unit remain in place even when others are called to fight elsewhere, ensuring that civilians are continually protected.

BACK TO 2002
The more apt parallel to how defense in the south will look after the war, however, may be to the West Bank, where the IDF protects settler communities and secures the barrier with Israel while also implementing offensive operations aimed at diffusing any terror threat that may emerge from Paleostinian areas.

The situation in Gaza and on the Israeli side of the border today is not unlike the end of Operation Defensive Shield, a massive military operation in the West Bank launched in 2002 to stem the terror of the second intifada, including large incursions into Paleostinian cities.

Then, as now, Israel struggled with how it could maintain the operation’s gains once fighting ended and troops pulled back. The difference is that Hamas in Gaza is much stronger, and has ground infrastructure that didn’t exist in the West Bank in 2002.

It’s clear that even after the war ends, troops will need to continue operating inside Gaza. Once the buffer zone is established, the army is hoping to build up deterrence by deploying an immediate response to any possible disturbance, keeping things from snowballing out of control. On Tuesday, for instance, forces in Khuza’a fired warning shots multiple times at Paleostinian civilians trying to reach homes in the buffer zone.

October 7 did not begin on that bloody morning. For years, Gazooks chipped away at Israel’s deterrence with seemingly small-scale acts like launching incendiary balloons and noisy border riots.

These provocations escalated into the massacre in which Hamas rampaged through the south murdering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 253 others. This time, the army does not plan on giving any inches.

"The principle will be clear," said the defense source. "The rate of destruction of [Hamas’s abilities] and the erosion of its powers will be higher than the rate at which it can build them back up. Only that way can we ensure that what was will be no more."

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

How will Israel evacuate 1.2 million Gazans from Rafah? IDF general explains

2024-03-21

Seems to me that, the best way, is just to start bombing and they'll evacuate themselves: "Give a Man a Fish" etc...
[Jpost] "The IDF is about to enter Rafah. Before it attacks Rafah, it needs to move the 1.2 million refugees who are there either [elsewhere in Gaza] or to some floating islands. The Egyptians don't want them to come to the fence with Egypt, the Americans don't want us to attack first, so that there won't be a humanitarian disaster. I think it should have happened a week or two ago," he said. "People got confused when the Prime Minister's Office says 'approved plans,' it does not mean 'gave the army an order to attack.' Today, the army and the political echelon, in my opinion, are saying the same thing, they are waiting, they are currently giving a chance to the last attempt to reach a hostage deal."

HAMAS DOESN'T FEEL PRESSURE
According to Nagel, "There won't be a deal because Hamas doesn't currently feel enough pressure, especially [Hamas chief Yahya] Sinwar, and that's why it makes ridiculous demands. I still think it's right to send the delegation to Qatar... I'm in favor of a deal that has everything Hamas wants except for a ceasefire. To get 40-50 hostages, I have no problem with a month-long cease-fire and even the release here and there of heavy prisoners. The one thing that we can under no circumstances agree to is a ceasefire."

Nagel continued, stating "What's happening right now de facto is that Hamas is getting a kind of ceasefire, not exactly, but kind of. They're still fighting in the north, in the center, and here and there, we're attacking Rafah. We need to start with this quickly, very quickly. This situation also affects the North (the border with Lebanon)."

According to Nagel, "There are 24 battalions of Hamas, we destroyed 18 to 20 of them. We need to destroy all 24, after that we need to continue working underground and above the ground, for years, just like it was in Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin. Until today, [22] years later, there are still nests of terrorism in Jenin, so whoever thinks that there will be no terrorists after we destroy Hamas in Rafah is wrong. The fight against terrorism will take place for [years to come], but if the IDF controls security in Gaza, it will be able to enter and exit as it does in Judea and Samaria, which will be much better."

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Palestinian terrorist cell killed by IDF drone strike near Jenin

2023-06-22

[JPost] Followup
The cell has carried out several shooting attacks against settlements throughout the West Bank recently.

The IDF on Wednesday night killed a terror cell in the West Bank using a drone, an unusual move generally reserved for targeting major terrorists or rocket-firing cells in Gaza.

A joint statement by the IDF and the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) said that intelligence from the domestic security agency had located the terror cell in real-time as it was perpetrating a shooting attack near Jalma in the Menashe region.

According to the statement, this same terror cell has recently carried out a number of shooting attacks throughout Judea and Samaria.

Once the cell was identified, the IDF gave a rapid order to have the drone fire on and kill the cell before they could escape again, as they have after past shootings.

IDF WAS GIVEN GREEN LIGHT TO CONDUCT DRONE STRIKES IN SEPTEMBER
The drone attack came only days after the IDF used a helicopter strike to help rescue ambushed soldiers in Jenin, signaling the defense establishment is taking off the gloves in the West Bank in an unprecedented way - at least in comparison to recent years dating back to Operation Defensive Shield in 2002.

In September 2022, IDF commanders in the West Bank were given the green light to use armed drones to carry out targeted killings of Palestinian terrorists, with the approval of then chief of staff Aviv Kohavi.

According to sources, commanders were then allowed to use the platforms not only as cover and intelligence for forces during operations but also to carry out strikes should armed gunmen be identified as posing imminent threats to their troops.

The order came as Israeli security forces have encountered a significant rise in shooting attacks and massive gunfire during arrest raids, specifically in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus.

However, it is only recently that drones, helicopters and other heavier firepower platforms are actually being used in a continuous way.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Two killed in Jerusalem terror ramming, including 6-year-old boy; driver shot dead

2023-02-11

[IsraelTimes] Second victim a recently-married yeshiva student, 20; medics say 5 others hurt including child at death's door; attacker identified as Israeli citizen from East Jerusalem

A six-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man were killed and at least five others were maimed in a car-ramming terror attack near East Jerusalem’s Ramot neighborhood, police and medics said Friday. One of those maimed was a child at death's door.

Graphic footage from the scene showed several people strewn on the ground after a blue Mazda vehicle crashed into a bus stop near the Nebi Samuel site, between Jerusalem and the Paleostinian city of Ramallah.

Several bystanders were seen aiming firearms at the car. Police said the driver was rubbed out by an officer who was at the scene.

The attacker was identified as Hussein Qaraqa, an Israeli citizen and resident of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya.

Police designated the incident as a terror attack, and officers were seen operating in Issawiya shortly after.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said the boy, 6, was pronounced dead at the scene. He was named as Yaakov Yisrael Fali.

The second victim was identified as Alter Shlomo Lederman, a 20-year-old yeshiva student who had gotten married two months ago. He and his wife had been on their way to his parents’ home for Shabbat. Lederman was rushed to Shaare Zedek Medical Center at death's door, where he succumbed to his wounds.

Hebrew-language media reports claimed Lederman had been shot during the incident, and was not rammed. But a police spokesperson denied the claim and said all the victims had been hurt by the car-ramming.

Another eight-year-old boy was at death's door at Shaare Zedek.

"When we arrived at the scene, the sight was shocking," said MDA medic Shraga Rosenthal. "We saw a car near the bus station after it hit pedestrians who were waiting at the station."

"We saw six victims lying next to each other, among them, two were children about 6 years old who were unconscious with severe multisystem trauma," he said.

The other victims included two men in their 20s at death's door, a man in his 40s in moderate condition, and a 10-year-old boy in light condition, medical officials said.

The victims were taken to the Shaare Zedek and Hadassah Mount Scopus hospitals in the capital.

Police said a large number of forces were at the scene.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the premier was being updated on the attack and had decided to seal the home of the attacker.

"On behalf of all the citizens of Israel, I send my condolences to the families of those murdered in the attack in Jerusalem. I conducted a security assessment and ordered an increase in forces, to carry out arrests and act immediately to seal the terrorist’s house and demolish it," Netanyahu said.

As a matter of policy, Israel demolishes the homes of Paleostinians accused of carrying out deadly terror attacks. Sealing the homes of attackers is often a replacement or stopgap for demolishing them. Last month, police welded the doors and windows shut of the home of a Paleostinian terrorist who killed seven in Jerusalem, as a temporary move ahead of its full demolition.

President Isaac Herzog noted the attack came just before Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest.

"Just before Shabbat and our hearts ache with terrible pain after a despicable terrorist took the lives of a small child and a young man in a ramming attack in Jerusalem," Herzog said.

"Together with all the people of Israel, I feel the pain of the families and pray for the healing of the maimed," he said.

Speaking at the scene, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said he had ordered police to set up roadblocks around Issawiya, where the terrorist came from "as a deterrent."

"We have to act with determination and aggression to protect our children," he said.

Ben Gvir, of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, said that he wanted to "completely besiege" the neighborhood, but there were legal problems with this, adding that he was continuing to work to pass legislation calling for the death penalty

for terrorists.

After his remarks, several angry bystanders shouted at the minister. "The biggest terror attacks were on your watch," one said, while a group of Ben Gvir supporters chanted "death to terrorists."

In a later statement, Ben Gvir called on police to "prepare plans for Operation Defensive Shield 2 in East Jerusalem," referring to the Israeli military’s operations in the West Bank during the Second Intifada in the early 2000s.

"Ben Gvir instructed the police to ready and prepare plans for Operation Defensive Shield 2 in East Jerusalem starting this coming Sunday, to deal with the terror nests in East Jerusalem," his office said.

Ha’aretz adds:

Jerusalem Attacker Was Released From Psychiatric Ward Day Before Car Ramming, Family Says
'I'm sorry for what happened. It's a tragedy, but it's not a terror attack,' a relative said.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

The lessons of Defensive Shield, 20 years on

2022-04-16

[Jpost] "After Defensive Shield... the situation in Israel completely changed."

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Report: Nasrallah suffers heart attack

2019-01-13

[IsraelNationalNews] Hezbollah leader reportedly fighting cancer and heart problems. The Lebanese media reported on Saturday that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was hospitalized after apparently suffering a heart attack.
Who knew he had a heart?
Additional reports said that Nasrallah is also fighting cancer.

Israel Hayom quoted Lebanese journalist Jerry Mahar as saying that "an intelligence source confirmed that a senior figure in the Hezbollah organization was hospitalized today in a hospital in the capital Beirut, and other sources confirmed that it was Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who has been fighting cancer for years."

The reports were not confirmed by any official source in the country and Hezbollah did not respond to the report.

Nasrallah has not been seen in the media since reports of the exposure of Hezbollah tunnels in Operation Defensive Shield.

In his last public appearance in November, Nasrallah blasted reports of a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel and warned the Jewish State not to attack Lebanon.

"We condemn any form of normalization with the Zionist entity," Nasrallah said. "I say to the Palestinian people, do not lose hope over the Arab states' normalization with Israel; what before went on behind the scenes now is taking place publicly. The current normalization has put an end to Arab hypocrisy, and removed the mask from the swindlers and hypocrites."

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

As one Palestinian family’s history shows, home demolitions won’t stop attacks

2018-12-16

The editorialist misses a key point, I think: money spent on rebuilding demolished houses is money unavailable for other things, like financing future terrorism, and so the demolitions have strategic value even if the tactic itself is a wash. Interesting facts culled from a longer, and more emotional piece.

[IsraelTimes] The Abu Hamid family, whose home was demolished by the Israeli military early Saturday, has a long history of involvement in attacks on Israeli security forces.

In 1991, the Israel Defense Forces destroyed the family’s home in the al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah over the involvement of one of the brothers ‐ Nasser, a Fatah member ‐ in terrorism. That house was later rebuilt... before being demolished again Saturday.

In 1994 another brother, Abdul Munim Abu Hamid, along with two Hamas, the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®, members, killed Shin Bet agent Noam Cohen. Abdul himself was killed a few months later.

Nasser Abu Hamid, upon his release from prison, became a founder of Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades at the start of the Second Intifada and in April 2002 was incarcerated
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
by the IDF during Operation Defensive Shield, not far from the family home.

Other brothers would also spend time in Israeli prisons over the years, among them Islam Yusef Abu Hamid.

During an operation of the elite Duvdevan unit in al-Amari in May, he is said to have thrown a marble slab from a roof at Israeli forces, killing Staff Sgt. Ronen Lubarsky ‐ and leading to the razing of the family home early Saturday.

THE SOUND AND THE FURY
The family’s history shows that home demolitions are, unfortunately, highly unlikely to deter would-be attackers.

Although some seem to believe destroying assailants’ homes is a comprehensive solution to preventing terrorism, the case of the Abu Hamid family shows that not only do they not prevent attacks ‐ they can sometimes even fuel motivation for Dire Revenge.

The Abu Hamid home will be rebuilt within a few years, likely with Paleostinian Authority funding, as one Fatah leader has said.

Even if the Fatah money is not forthcoming, someone else ‐ perhaps Hamas ‐ will provide the funds.

There is no magical solution for preventing attacks on Israeli citizens and soldiers, and anyone who holds up house demolitions as the ultimate means to do so is either mistaken or deliberately misleading others. It is an excellent way of soothing the families of the victims and an Israeli public out for Dire Revenge, but nothing more than that.

At the height of the suicide kaboom wave of 2003, three years after the start of the Second Intifada, a report was drawn up by the IDF on the policy of home demolitions, a practice that had received an official green light in the summer of 2002. Hundreds of terrorists’ family homes had since been destroyed.

But the report determined there was no evidence that the demolitions had a deterrent effect and that furthermore, the number of attacks actually rose a few months after the implementation of the policy.

In early 2005, a committee appointed by then-IDF chief of staff Moshe Ya’alon and headed by Gen. Udi Shani recommended ending the razing of homes on the grounds that they were not proven to be a deterrent, and declared that the damage outweighed any benefit.

While Israelis in recent years have become used to a rather low number of attacks, the lava in the volcano that is the West Bank continues to bubble beneath the surface. The Shin Bet and IDF can attest to this, having prevented hundreds of attacks over the past year ‐ sometimes with the close cooperation of the Paleostinian Authority’s security services.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

PM orders new measures to combat terror wave

2015-10-05

[IsraelTimes] Emergency meeting approves wider use of administrative detention, fast-track demolition of terrorists' homes; security cabinet to convene Monday

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrapped up a four-hour security meeting Sunday evening on the recent uptick in violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank, ordering new measures to crack down on the wave of terror after two separate stabbing attacks in the capital Saturday, one of them fatal.

According to Channel 2, among the measures discussed were an increase in the use of administrative detention [that is the jailing of suspects without trial] for Paleostinian rioters and terror suspects, an increase in the deployment of security forces in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the reintroduction of the controversial policy of demolishing terrorists' homes.

At the end of the meeting, Netanyahu announced that he instructed security forces to "fast-track the razing of terrorists' homes, expand the use of administrative detention against Paleostinian rioters, reinforce the presence of security forces in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and ban those who incite [to terror] from the Old City and the Temple Mount."

Following the terror attacks Saturday, sources close to the prime minister were quoted as saying: "They want a third intifada? They'll get a second Defensive Shield."

Netanyahu said Israel was "waging a fight to the death against Paleostinian terror."

Netanyahu met with Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, IDF Chief Gadi Eisenkot, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, Yoram Cohen, and other security officials.

According to Channel 10, security officials told Netanyahu that the recent wave of violence was just that, and not a third intifada.

Security officials also told the PM, according to the report, that despite Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
's UN speech and recent tensions, security coordination between Israeli and Paleostinian forces was ongoing.

Netanyahu told those present to act to calm tensions. He was said to have decided not to approve new construction plans in settlements in the West Bank in response to the terrorism.

The PM came back from New York Sunday afternoon after attending and speaking at the United Nations
...an organization originally established to war on dictatorships which was promptly infiltrated by dictatorships and is now held in thrall to dictatorships...
General Assembly and went directly to the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv to discuss the security situation, less than 24 hours after two terror attacks Saturday night in Jerusalem left two people dead and three injured, including a toddler.

Following the terror attacks Saturday, sources close to the prime minister were quoted as saying: "They want a third intifada? They'll get a second Defensive Shield," in reference to the IDF's crackdown on terrorism in the West Bank in 2002 in response to the second intifada.

"There will be many steps taken in the field which will harm Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason,'s infrastructure," the sources said.

Netanyahu was to meet with the security cabinet Monday night after the conclusion of the Sukkot holiday to discuss operations against Hamas and other terror groups in the West Bank, Israel Hayom reported.

Earlier Sunday, police took the drastic step of barring Paleostinians from Jerusalem's Old City in the wake of an attack there Saturday in which a Paleostinian killed two Israelis and maimed a child and a further stabbing early Sunday morning in which an Israeli teen was maimed.

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Abbas: Hamas Plot Against PA Threatens Unity Govt.

2014-08-19

[Ynet] Paleostinian President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
replied to Shin Bet claims Monday, that Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, was responsible for attempts to incite a third intifada in the West Bank and topple the Paleostinians Authority government, saying that he was following the reports with great concern.

Abbas warned that the developing information posed a serious threat to the future of the Paleostinian Unity government. In his statement, the Paleostinian leader repeatedly stressed the name Hamas to more severly highlight the organization behind the foiled attempt some are calling a coup.

The Shin Bet revealed earlier that the investigation of 93 Hamas activists jugged
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
across the West Bank in recent months revealed that they participated in planning a series of mass attacks on Israeli targets — with a focus on violence in the Temple Mount compound — in order to instigate a third intifada.

The plan called for using the intifada as cover to seize rule in Ramallah, which would have been led by the "Mohammed Deif of the West Bank" who currently operates out of Turkey.

More than 70 indictments were served in recent days at military tribunals in the West Bank, and they expose the largest coordination effort Hamas has attempted in the area since Operation Defensive Shield more than a decade ago.

Under the framework of the planned operation, terror cells were created in 46 Paleostinian towns and villages — in Jenin, Nablus, East Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Hebron.

The infrastructure for the operation was exposed in May, along with the identity of its leader, Hamas operations officer Saleh al-Arouri, who remains in Turkey, according to the Shin Bet.

Ynet was told that in recent months there was an active movement of Hamas activists arriving to Hebron from abroad. These operatives were known to security forces to be loyal to al-Arouri.

The operatives were assisted by Jordanian couriers, who transferred $600,000 — $50,000 in each border run. The funds were moved through Turkey and Jordan and were intended to purchase vehicles and safe-houses.

The Shin Bet confiscated the cash,

...so useful in covering expenses...

as well as 24 M-16 rifles (not of Israeli manufacture), six handguns, and seven missile launchers, magazines, and loads of ammunition.

Al-Arouri was released from Israeli prison several years ago; he was one of the Hamas officials involved in the negotiations for the release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. In recent years sources in the security establishment have named him as the source shaping terror operations against Israelis in the West Bank.

At the head of the military infrastructure in the West Bank stood Riyad Nasser, who was arrested several months ago — but whose interrogation only started in the summer after terminated his hunger strike.

Paleostinian engineering and chemistry students were recruited for the operation. One of the most notable detainees holds a doctorate in computer science — he was recuited in Malaysia and trained in encryption and cyber-attacks.

"The discovery of the infrastructure attests to the great danger posed by Hamas' headquarters abroad given its strategic plan to collapse the Paleostinian Authority," said the Shin Bet.

"Khaled Mashal was aware of this and the Turkish government knew about the operations emanating from its territory.

Ah. The third run of the Gaza convoy is an attempt to salvage something from the double fiasco of the disrupted Hamas West Bank takeover and the failed Gaza tunnels massacre. Israel's win over Hamas is much bigger than it previously appeared. Well done, all! Very well done, indeed.

The PA's security forces received updates about the investigation. Hamas' plan was the same as its seizure of the Strip in 2007. Al-Arouri is the Mohammed Deif of the West Bank."

Except that Mr. Md. Deif actually succeeded for a while.

Link

Home Front: Culture Wars

The battle for America

2012-05-08

Israeli, Jewish students fighting back as hostility grows on leading campuses in America

It happened at the end of a Sabbath eve supper of a group of Jewish students. Amir Lev, Jewish Agency emissary at UC San Diego, went out for a smoke. He saw two cars wrapped with Paleostinian flags. "I took a few steps in the direction of the cars and they left," Lev recalls. "Two days later an Israeli student came over to his car and discovered that they spray painted the words 'Zionist terrorist.'"

"This does not happen every day, but there is definitely an escalation in the anti-Israel atmosphere in this university. And this is happening because for the first time Israeli students are responding," he says. "There is an approach which says it is preferable not to respond, because if we make noise we only give the other side more public relations. But we cannot continue giving them the stage. Some 90% of the students don't understand what this is about at all. We need to fight in order to bring them to our side. Now they see us; we are active."

This is exactly what is happening in the last two years in universities throughout the US and in particular in southern Caliphornia -- anti Israeli movements are no longer playing on an empty field. There are Israeli and Jewish American students who are fighting back against the heart of the intellectual elite in the US.

Caliphornia, one of the most liberal and left-wing states in the US poses a particularly difficult challenge: Most of the universities here are anti-Israel among both professors and students. On the other hand, Los Angeles alone is the largest Israeli population center outside of Israel, and all the universities have a relatively high percentage of Jewish students. So there is a big vacuum.

The emissary program of the Jewish Agency entered this vacuum, and it includes at this stage 50 young people in their 20s, who come on service for a year to three years in the largest universities in the US. The objective is to impose order on Israeli public relations efforts on the campuses. The financing comes jointly from the Jewish Agency, Hillel and private donors. In the case of Caliphornia the main donor is the Israel Leadership Council (ILC,) a five year old Israeli organization that became a significant player in advancing Israel's interests in southern Caliphornia.

Under the wings of Adam Milstein, a real estate tycoon who is one of the wealthiest men in the Israeli community, the organization also finances the Ambassador project, which trains local students to serve as a public relations force for Israel on campuses under the supervision of Israeli monitors. These are young people who are already located at the universities, usually US natives or some who came at a young age, and in fact most of them love the US and do not consider immigrating to Israel -- but one visit to Israel is all that they need to form a deep emotional bond.

"Everything most of these university students know about Israel is so distorted and baseless they are positive we are Nazis," says Sagi Balasha, director of ILC. "But when they see our representatives, they see human beings -- young people, educated, civilized. Very few people work on campuses with tens of thousands of students. It is a full-time job facing people some of whom are Jews who oppose Israel. These are Israel's reserve soldiers on the campuses.

Representatives of this "reserve unit" gathered in the beautiful living room of the home of Adam and Gila Milstein one cold evening. All impressive, strictly polite, perfect speaking fluency, tremendous desire, and impressively level-headed. Defining them isn't important, salt of the earth or Silicon Valley, these representatives give Israel an appearance that is 180 degrees different than what the average American absorbs from television. Most of them, by the way, hold left-wing political opinions.

"In the period of Operation Defensive Shield I served at the IDF Spokesman's Office and worked with foreign journalists", says Neri Johnson, the emissary to UCLA. "It was almost impossible to talk to them. The pictures that came from the field were difficult and it was impossible to say something in their defense, but no one even tried to understand the context. Everything was black and white. I couldn't forget it even after the army, so I came here."

"The other side is much better than we in relaying its messages, and this is frustrating," says Lian Kimia, who came to the US with her parents at age 7, studied in UCLA, and now at age 25 is immigrating to Israel.

"They have Apartheid Week, which takes place in almost every American... the entire week is overflowing with effective gimmicks. Once they set up a roadblock in the middle of the campus, so one of us got dressed like a Paleostinian, went there and told the students gathered there: 'Imagine that I was a terrorist, this place would have blown up already.' But we generally don't behave like that but try to create a dialogue. The question is always whether to go down to their level, because this propaganda is so strong."

This is also the week in which pro-Paleostinian organizations try to pass a resolution supporting the BDS movement, which was founded in 2005 for the purpose of reviving the economic boycott against Israel. A significant part of its activities is held on campus, with Paleostinian students and supporters seeking to cancel deals with Israel.

"This boycott proposal passed only once until today, at Berkeley," says Ido Adulami, the USC emissary. "It passed unanimously, but the university president cast a veto. They tried to remove Sabra hummus from the cafeteria, claiming that the owners, Strauss, contribute to the IDF. It gets down to the level of boycotting hummus."

IN UC San Diego there is a relatively new phenomenon -- in recent years there has been a pronounced rush against Israel that reached the point where Israeli students preferred not to wander the main paths of the campus during Apartheid Week.

"Two months ago we heard that the demand to impose a boycott will come up this week," says Amir Lev. "From the moment that we discovered this we charged at members of the student government of the university with aggressive lobbying. This is a political effort in every way. Now it is clear to everyone that we are here."

"We got there at 5:30 pm and left at 2:00 am. We sat in a small room with 250-300 students who were divided clearly into two sides... some 90% of the people in the room were never in Israel, don't know anything about the conflict, it is doubtful if they can even identify Israel on a map. They conduct a debate full of fire and shouts as if they have any idea of what they are talking about. This is a university with more than 30,000 students, and all the lists that take part in the next elections to student government are running on one platform only -- whether they are for or against a boycott against Israel. So what if most of the students don't know what this is even about?" he says.

"The proposal lost by a 20-13 majority. If we had not been there, the resolution no doubt would have been passed. They were in shock. They wept as if we prevented the establishment of their state at that moment."

The force of anti-Israel feeling is something that changes from campus to campus and sometimes also at the campus itself from year to year. Everything depends on the students who study there at any particular moment. In Berkeley it was always hot -- in the past year students built models of West Bank roadblocks in the middle of campus, but this year it is relatively quiet there.

Irvine College in Orange County was considered until a few years ago as one of the most hostile campuses to Israel in America. Two years ago pro-Paleostinian students disrupted a lecture by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, and as a result of this the number of Jews studying at Irvine reached a new low for the last 15 years.

"They come to the lectures we organized, sit in the first row, and at the moment the lecture starts they get up and leave," says Eren Hoch, the Jewish Agency emissary to the university. "Once we brought a lecturer, a former IDF officer who said plainly that he is in favor of two states, and they got up and left anyway."

When asked whether the pro-Israel activists interact with the other side, Amir Lev responds: "Definitely. We manage to keep it respectable. This is America. Everything is terribly politically correct and you must keep it polite. This is not about persuading them. When I sit with one of them in a café, I do not speak to them but to the people sitting around and listening. There are people who don't agree even to speak with me because I served in the army, I am an oppressor. But we try to prompt others not to see us one-dimensionally."

"They are clever," adds Ido Adulami. "They are careful to say they are not anti-Jewish, but rather, anti-Zionist. They also use the word Zionism all the time. They made it a word of contempt and this is propaganda that also influences us. But the innovation we bring is focusing on things that are not tied to politics.

"We try to place a human face on what they know about Israel. For example, we have a group that deals with Israel only from the high-tech business angle. It is most important to cause people to understand the gap between what they see on television and reality. At least they will know what they are talking about. In a world in which your life is summed up by your status on Facebook this is a big challenge," he says.

Lev concludes: "It is only 5% of the students, but these are the activists; they make the noise. And what is most important is that they are also the next generation of American leaders. Our objective is to expose the extremism of the other side and we feel we are succeeding, because suddenly now for the first time the organization of black students is trying to make contact with us and people feel at ease walking on campus."

Link

Israel-Palestine-Jordan

Lawfare: 50 civil suits vs. Barghouti for violence during 2nd Intifada

2012-04-21

Transcripts of the Shin Bet interrogations of Marwan Barghouti a decade ago show the former PLO leader avoided taking responsibility for terror attacks during the second intifada while bankrolling them.

On April 15, 2002, 10 years ago this week, Marwan Barghouti, the secretary general of Fatah's Tanzim militia, was jugged by members of the undercover Duvdevan unit of the Israel Defense Forces in Ramallah. His capture was preceded by two weeks of cat-and-mouse games with the IDF and the Shin Bet security service, during which the Israelis also disseminated threatening hints about an intention to assassinate him.

In April and May of 2002, immediately after Barghouti's arrest by the IDF during Operation Defensive Shield, the Shin Bet interrogated him at the Russian Compound in Jerusalem. The records of the interrogation, which are being published here for the first time, were revealed during judicial proceedings that are now taking place and related to civil-damages suits filed against Barghouti and the Paleostinian Authority. There are some 50 civil suits brought by victims of intifada violence and their families now pending before Israeli courts, and Barghouti is a plaintiff in many of them, together with the PA. These include a claim by victims of the March 5, 2002, Sea Food Market bombing in Tel Aviv, and others by relatives of Aharon Obadyan and Moshe Dayan, who were killed in attacks in July 2001 and March 2002, respectively. Barghouti's general line of defense is that he does not recognize the authority of Israeli courts.

"I've covered my eyes, so you aren't there!"

The records were obtained by Haaretz correspondent Chaim Levinson. They include memoranda by Shin Bet officials written during the course of Barghouti's investigation, which in one instance are also backed up by an extensive and detailed transcript. Haaretz does not have either audio tapes or video footage of the interrogation sessions.

While Barghouti was being questioned, the IDF and the Shin Bet were hunting down the assemblers of bombs and dispatchers of jacket wallahs in the casbah of Nablus and in the ruins of the Jenin refugee camp. In Rishon Letzion, on May 7, a Hamas, always the voice of sweet reason, suicide bomber went kaboom!" in the Sheffield Club pool hall, murdering 16 Israeli citizens. Under American pressure, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ended the siege of the Muqata headquarters of PA Chairman Yasser Arafat in Ramallah, and changed his mind about expanding Operation Defensive Shield to the Gazoo Strip as well.

Each of the Shin Bet interrogations of Barghouti - who also served as secretary general of Fatah in Judea, Samaria and Gazoo; was a member of the Paleostinian legislature and founded the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades - went on for hours. Barghouti's partial confessions, which were recorded, were used two years later as evidence to indict him for three terror attacks: the June 12, 2001, murder (due to mistaken identity ) of a Greek Orthodox monk near Ramallah; the murder of Yoela Chen near Givat Ze'ev on January 15, 2002; and a Tel Aviv shooting attack of March 5, 2002, in which three non-combatants were killed at the Sea Food Market restaurant. The details Barghouti gave also helped to build a case against other Fatah military activists, who also spoke about him in their own interrogations. However,
death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate...
the court eventually acquitted Barghouti of involvement in additional attacks in 2001-2, which the prosecution was unable to prove.

Barghouti's confessions indicate that PA Chairman Arafat issued a general directive to carry out terror attacks, but made sure not to get personally involved in any way that might incriminate him. Barghouti was convicted in 2004, and sentenced to five concurrent life sentences. Despite his hopes, the senior Fatah leader was not recently released as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange.

At the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000, Barghouti - a seasoned political activist who previously had spoken in favor of implementing the Oslo Accords, and marched in demonstrations shoulder to shoulder with Israeli leftists - was drawn into the wave of terror that swept through the territories. According to the court's verdict, he played a substantial role in the barrage of shooting attacks (and later suicide kabooms ) initiated by Fatah.

The reasons for this about-face by that organization, whose leader, Arafat, had participated in the July 2000 peace talks at Camp David, were varied. At the basis was the ideological argument advocating the need to return to the armed struggle after the failure of the grinding of the peace processor (Barghouti told his Shin Bet interrogators that an independent state must be achieved through bloodshed ). Furthermore, the more the mass demonstrations in the first month of the intifada deteriorated into exchanges of fire with the IDF, in which the Paleostinians suffered dozens of casualties, the greater the desire for taking Dire Revenge against Israel.

Barghouti was also motivated to act initially because of competition with fellow Fatah member Hussein al-Sheikh. Within a short time, the severe losses suffered by the Paleostinians pushed them to become more extreme in their views, with the Fatah leaders afraid of losing the street to Hamas and Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Mohammedan Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the liquidation of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
, which spearheaded the spate of suicide attacks. Fatah, led by Barghouti, crossed two red lines in the winter of 2002: Its members began to carry out suicide attacks (something they had refrained from in the past ). They also resumed attacks within the Green Line, as opposed to the declared policy of a battle against the IDF and the settlers only.

The wave of attacks in the "Terrible March" of 2002 (with 133 Israeli dead, most of them civilians ) led to Sharon's decision to recapture the cities of the West Bank in Operation Defense Shield. Thus Israel in effect crushed the Arafat-led PA. The Authority emerged from its ruins only two-and-a-half years later, after the death of Arafat and the appointment of the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
as his successor.

Following are abridged versions of the records from Barghouti's interrogations:

See article link for details.

Ten years later

Marwan Barghouti will soon be 54 years old. Ten years in jail have not been kind to him, although in recent years he has been more diligent about working out. He reads Hebrew newspapers, watches television (when he isn't in solitary confinement ) and maintains close contact with other PA leaders. Occasionally family members or his attorney Elias Sabag come to visit. According to all the public opinion polls in the territories, Barghouti is still seen as the certain successor of the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
(Abu Mazen ). Barghouti's views are hawkish compared to those of Abbas, and only recently he called for stopping Paleostinian security coordination with Israel.

His attorney Sabag refuses to comment on the texts of the Shin Bet interrogations, because, "not everything that is written in them is correct. Since the age of 17 Marwan has never sighed a confession, and in any case we don't recognize the authority of the Israeli court." Sabag claims that Barghouti has yet to make a decision as to whether to run for the presidency of the PA. He says that Paleostinian politics are presently three-sided: PA chair Abbas, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad
...Fayyad's political agenda holds that neither violence nor peaceful negotiations have brought the Paleostinians any closer to an independent state. The alternative to both, violent negotiations, doesn't seem to be working too well, either...
and Barghouti. "As long as the third side is in prison, the triumvirate does not function well."

Sabag avoids replying on behalf of Barghouti as to the possibility of Fatah's renewing the armed struggle, and says: "I can't say in his name whether he regrets the intifada. Today, like the entire Paleostinian leadership, he supports the idea of the nonviolent popular struggle. Israelis also participate in those demonstrations. I can only say that he's a great believer in the two-state solution. He considers it an acceptable and feasible solution."

Link

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