The IDF blocked the entrance to the escape route used by the terrorists who carried out the shooting attack on a bus in the Jordan Valley yesterday, but the rest of the road remained open, as well as other entrances leading to the main road where the attack was carried out.
The escape route is part of a network of roads paved illegally in recent years throughout the area, connecting the villages in Area B to a network of Bedouin clusters and illegal outposts of the Palestinian Authority in Area C, with the aim of creating a Palestinian Arab territorial continuum and isolating Jewish settlements.
Two years ago, the Regavim movement warned about the work being carried out to pave the road networks. At the very beginning of the work in the field, the enforcement authorities were contacted with the demand that they stop the construction of the road. Only after repeated appeals and great pressure, and after the paving of the network was completed, did the Civil Administration partially enforce and destroy a short section of it, but in a short time the destroyed section was repaired again, and yesterday it was used as the terrorists' escape route.
"The Defense Minister's policy of containment and zero enforcement against the illegal construction and agricultural takeover by the Palestinian Authority, which treats the territory as if it were its own, serve terrorism and allow terrorists to move freely in the territory and harm security," said Avraham Binyamin, Director of the Policy and Research Department in Regavim.
"We repeatedly warn against the agricultural takeover and the illegal road encroachments, because in addition to creating the Palestinian territorial continuum and isolating Jewish settlements, they also constitute a strategic danger and serve as smuggling and escape routes for terrorists. Gantz's lack of action and, moreover, his lack of understanding of the situation on the ground, are seriously damaging Israel's security," he said.
Six soldiers and a civilian bus driver were wounded in the shooting. The terrorists were later arrested after their vehicle caught fire.