Released for publication: IDF forces succeeded in preventing two shooting attacks targeting the Jews of Gush Etzion and the southern Jerusalem Har Homa neighborhood in the past week.
The attacks were planned in Gaza by the Popular Resistance Committee, a terrorist logistical planning group made up of members of all of the Arab terror groups operating in the Palestinian Authority.
Early Thursday morning, IDF soldiers in Bethlehem arrested three terrorists involved in the implementation of the attacks. Ta’a Hassan Abu Alya was wanted for a number of shooting attacks in Gush Etzion that failed to injure or kill anyone and for the production of explosives. Yakoub Aymad Al-Kadar Nubani was involved in shooting attacks in the same region in 2001, at the start of the Oslo War. Mahmoud Abed Raba was poised to carry out attacks on the southern Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Homa and motorists using the main Tunnels Road leading from the capital southward to Gush Etzion.
Israel’s reentry into PA-assigned Bethlehem and its environs in 2002 drastically reduced the many shooting attacks originating in the area since the start of the Oslo War two years earlier. Rock and fire-bomb attacks are on the rise, however.
Rock and Knife Attacks
In Hevron on Sunday, an Arab woman with a 10-inch knife was arrested by Border Police while attempting to carry out a knife attack at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron. The woman told investigators that she intended to stab a soldier.
Arabs hurled rocks at a Jewish motorist adjacent to the Hawara checkpoint near Shechem in northern Samaria. The passengers and driver escaped unharmed but the vehicle was damaged. A bus was later targeted at the same location, with no damage or injuries resulting.
Near Ramallah, in the Binyamin region, a Jewish woman was injured by rocks thrown at her car from the Arab village Luban A-Sharkiya. She was treated at the scene as IDF forces searched for her attackers.
Arabs also stoned an Israeli car near Hevron Saturday night, near the village of Idna. The car was damaged but the Jewish motorists were unharmed. Also on Saturday night, IDF forces discovered a terrorist laying explosives by the fence surrounding southern Gaza. The soldiers opened fire and wounded the terrorist, who fled.
Sea Smuggling
In the ocean opposite the Gaza-Egyptian border Saturday night, IDF Navy troops opened fire on boats they suspected of smuggling arms. The vessels were in a no-sail zone and appeared to make contact with an Egyptian boat, at which point goods and packages were exchanged. The Navy tracked the boats until dawn, when they managed to reach the Gaza shore and were were met by crowds of local Arabs. Foreign press reports claimed the boats were fishing boats, but the IDF spokesman responded that the incident involved “smugglers, not innocent fisherman.”
Last May, a shipment of more than a ton of explosives to be used in missile-manufacturing was intercepted by the Navy en route to Gaza. Intelligence assessments are that since the IDF’s Disengagement from Gaza, a large amount of weapons and explosives does make it through undetected.