Israel Update for April 2011

Just days before the stricken victim passed away, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu personally visited the unconscious boy and his grieving family at the hospital, signaling just how seriously government leaders viewed the outrageous attack. Speaking at a United Nations meeting in New York, President Shimon Peres used unusually strong words to denounce the assault, saying it was "another clear example of Gaza's transformation into a terrorist state." While Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas called for an end to the rocket firings, he also condemned what he characteristically termed "the Israeli aggression" launched against Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in response to the heinous attack.

There was some initial question as to whether or not Hamas militiamen were behind the bus assault. However Hamas leaders later admitted that their extremist group was indeed the culprit for the vile act, deeming it their "first response to the continuing crimes of the occupation"-as if IDF forces and settlers were still "occupying" the crowded coastal zone. Netanyahu said that whether or not Hamas members had fired the missile at the civilian bus, he held the group ultimately responsible since it exerts overall control in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military went into swift and intense action in the immediate wake of the attack. Dozens of Hamas targets were hit all over the Gaza Strip. In response, scores of rockets, mortar shells and several Grad missiles were fired at Israeli targets within the space of just a few hours, with one Grad reaching the city of Rishon Letzion on the southern outskirts of Tel Aviv for the first time. The city is also just a few miles from Israel's strategic Ben Gurion international airport.

In response to a slew of missiles being fired at the coastal city of Ashkelon, the Iron Dome system was activated for the first time in actual combat, successfully intercepting two of the incoming rockets which were instantly projected by the system's advanced computers to land and explode in heavily populated portions of the city. An Iron Dome battery was also dispatched to protect the greater Tel Aviv metropolitan area. Palestinian sources said five people were killed and over thirty injured in the IDF counter-action. Late the same evening, Hamas announced that it was ordering all militia forces in the coastal zone to hold their fire, including the unruly Islamic Jihad terrorist group that has become a virtual adjunct of the Shiite Iranian regime.

Despite the ceasefire call, dozens of additional rockets pounded down on Israeli territory before the barrage ultimately ended several days later-at least for the time being. Israeli officials said more than 120 mortar shells and missiles had been launched at Jewish civilian centres in just a three day period. Meanwhile the Netanyahu cabinet authorized the use of whatever force was deemed necessary to end the blitz, while defense officials warned once again that a major military operation was ready to be launched with little notice against the Hamas zone if deemed necessary. While visiting an Iron Dome battery outside of Ashkelon after the weekly cabinet meeting ended in Jerusalem, PM Netanyahu said, "There is no state that would be willing to absorb the intentional firing of an anti-tank missile on a school bus, to say nothing of criminal attacks on civilians, and Israel is certainly not willing to tolerate this."

PA Police Kill Jewish Worshipper

On April 24th, Ben Yosef Livnat, a 24 year old nephew of Likud party cabinet minister Limor Livnat, was shot and killed near Joseph's Tomb on the southern outskirts of Nablus, north of Jerusalem. Several other Orthodox Jews accompanying the slain man were wounded. The incident was especially grave in that it was apparently Palestinian Authority security agents who carried out the shootings (some speculated at first that it might have been terrorists dressed up as PA policemen). A PA spokesman claimed that three cars carrying the victims approached a PA checkpoint near the sacred site where Jacob's son Joseph was buried after his remains were returned from ancient Egypt. Israeli officials said 15 observant men from the large Breslov Hassidic sect had driven to the revered tomb in three cars without prior arrangement with either PA or IDF officials. A PA spokesman claimed the victims did not stop as requested at a checkpoint, but another report said they were fired upon by a passing PA security jeep without provocation.

Orthodox Jews throughout the disputed territories and all of Israel were incensed by the PA shootings. Thousands marched to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem for the young man's highly emotional internment. Noting at the funeral that eyewitness reports said PA security personnel kept firing on the Israeli cars even after her nephew was clearly hit by bullets and severely wounded, Minister of Culture and Sport Limor Livnat declared that the young man's death was, "nothing but cold-blooded murder." The cabinet minister's father, Azriel Livnat, compared the shooting death of his grandson Ben Josef to that of the first Jew executed by British forces during the Mandate period, Shlomo Ben Yosef.

However PA security forces spokesman Adnan Damiri maintained that "armed settlers" come to pray at the tomb without official permission on many occasions, especially during Jewish holidays. He complained that IDF soldiers stationed at a nearby outpost should have halted the three Israeli vehicles before they approached the PA checkpoint, which he said would have prevented PA intervention. Still, Israeli officials pointed out that American-funded and trained PA security forces know full well that most Orthodox Jews sincerely come to the sacred synagogue to pray, not to stir up trouble. Therefore the armed intervention was excessive, to say the least. Some security sources warned that it might be an early indication that heavily armed PA police forces might support any new Palestinian uprising, as most did during the horrific Al Aksa attrition war that was launched with Yasser Arafat's approval in September, 2000. Calls for such a new violent terrorist offensive have been increasing in recent months, endorsed by a controversial page on the popular Facebook website.

A brother of one of the four wounded observant Jews told reporters that all realized they were taking a risk by not getting official permission to pray at the site. However he also pointed out that due to the Passover holidays, their rabbi who usually coordinates such visits was not free to do so. Therefore he said the young men took the risk of just showing up at the tomb. Meanwhile the Israeli police asked a court near Tel Aviv to remand in custody three members of the Hassidic sect on charges of violating a posted restricted military zone.

Israeli media reports noted that it is a known fact that not all religious Jews clear their visits to Joseph's Tomb in advance with PA officials. Still, they note that according to the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo peace accord, the holy site was meant to remain under overall Israeli control, and certainly open for Jewish prayers on special occasions such as during the Passover holidays (the shooting took place just before the end of the week-long festival). On top of this, they point out that the tomb was taken over by Muslims in the Middle Ages who forbade all Jewish prayer at the site for several centuries (as they did at Abraham's Tomb in Hebron), even though it is not an Islamic holy site per se. After Israel captured the area during the 1967 Six Day War, it was renovated and reopened to Jewish prayer. However Palestinian rioters took it back again at the end of the first week of the violent Al Aksa revolt in 2000, with Israeli Jews only gaining very limited access to the ancient holy site since then.

On another, very sad terrorist note connected to the same area, Israeli security forces arrested two Palestinians during April who were charged with the brutal early March slaughter of five members of a family living in the Jewish Orthodox community of Itamar, not far from Nablus. The three murdered children-ranging in age from an 11 year old boy to a baby girl just three months old-were knifed to death in their home just hours after completing their weekly Friday night Sabbath meal with their parents, who were also slain. Police named the two terrorists as Hakim Maazan Niad Awad, an 18-year-old high school student, and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad, 19, both from the Arab village of Awarta located just over one mile south of Itamar. Police said the suspects confessed to the vicious crime and reenacted their stabbing spree. Israel Army Radio reported that the two young Muslim men did not express even the slightest remorse for their abominable slaughter, with one actually boasting that he went back into the home to stab the baby girl to death after initially leaving her alone. Media reports said the terrorists are members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) group.

Washington To Resist Unilateral Palestinian State

PA leaders once again declared during April that they plan to unilaterally establish an independent Palestinian state later this year, probably in September. This came after the World Bank and several other international institutions opined that the PA economy is strong enough to function in such a climate, but only with continuing substantial financial support from Israel, the United States, the European Union, Japan, and other foreign aid donors. Israeli assistance was deemed the most vital, given that the IDF still controls the overall movement of food, medicine and fuel supplies through various checkpoints into most PA zones of control.