Border Patrol officers stop car at checkpoint (file)
Border Patrol officers stop car at checkpoint (file)Kobi Gideon/Flash 90

There have been two high-profile stabbings in Tel Aviv in recent months committed by Arab residents of Judea and Samaria who illegally crossed the 1949 Armistice line - and yet a Jewish resident of a haredi suburb of the city on Tuesday was arrested bringing Arab illegals into the Tel Aviv area in his car trunk.

A 32-year-old Jewish resident of Bnei Brak, a haredi suburb of Tel Aviv, was arrested on Tuesday evening at a security point in Samaria on Highway 5.

After stopping at the checkpoint, a female security checker opened his car's trunk, where she discovered three Arab men trying to enter Israel illegally, lying in the compartment one next to the other.

The driver admitted under initial investigation that he received 250 shekels (just over $60) from each of the three illegal Arab entrants, and in exchange agreed to help them sneak into Israel, possibly to find illegal work - or else commit terrorist attacks.

All four men were brought in for investigation by the police.

As shocking as the incident is, it is the second such attempt that was foiled this week alone. There has in fact been a long history of similar attempts to smuggle in Arab illegals.

Just last October an Israeli woman was arrested while trying to smuggle three Arab illegals past the 1949 Armistice line in her car, along with a stash of drugs. At a checkpoint one of the three was found hiding under a blanket in the backseat, and the other two hiding in the trunk.

Another Tel Aviv woman last May was arrested trying to smuggle in two Arab men, while riding in a car with her three daughters.

The phenomenon is made all the more sinister given that just last Wednesday Hamza Mohammad Hassan Matrouk, a 23-year-old Arab terrorist from Tulkarem in Samaria who was in Israel illegally, stabbed 12 people in an attack on a bus in Tel Aviv, leaving three of them critically wounded.

Likewise last November an Arab terrorist who had entered Israel illegally repeatedly stabbed 20-year-old IDF soldier Almog Shiloni hy''d at Tel Aviv's Hahagana train station - Shiloni later died of his wounds.

There have in fact been numerous other cases of Arab illegals attacking, with yet another occurring in November 2013, when a 16-year-old Arab terrorist who had breached the security border stabbed IDF soldier Eden Atias hy''d of Afula to death as he slept on a bus.