A Jewish resident of the Shomron, aged 55, is listed in light condition following a drive-by shooting terrorist attack early this afternoon (Thursday). An Arab car overtook him on a road near the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Kalkilyeh, east of Kfar Saba and Raanana, and at least one of the occupants fired towards him. The victim sustained wounds in his hand, though he continued driving until he reached an IDF checkpoint. After being given emergency treatment at the scene by a Magen David Adom team, he was later evacuated to Meir Hospita in Kfar Saba.



A Kassam rocket was fired this morning from Hamas Authority-controlled Gaza towards Ashkelon. It exploded near a kibbutz south of Ashkelon, causing no casualties. Gaza terrorists fired five Kassams at Israel yesterday.



Arabs in the Hevron area hurled rocks at an Israeli car Thursday morning, causing damage but no casualties.



In a precedent-setting ruling, two Israeli-Arabs and a Jew were each convicted today of manslaughter, for having driven a suicide terrorist to Israel.  The terrorist, of Islamic Jihad, detonated himself at the Netanya mall in December 2005, murdering five and wounding 50.  The three accomplices were convicted of five counts of manslaughter and 30 counts of causing severe injury. They had often driven the suicide bomber from PA areas to pre-'67 Israel for pay, even after receiving frequent warnings of the dangers involved. Judge Oded Mudrick of the Tel Aviv District Court ruled that on the day of the attack, the fact that they did not care enough to act on their suspicions even though they asked their passenger what he had in his bag, renders them responsible for the attack. They will be sentenced at a later date. The victims' families expressed satisfaction with the ruling.



Four PA Arabs residents were arrested Thursday by Shomron police on charges of breaking and entering into homes from the Jewish community of Alfei Menashe. The four were found with tools used to pick locks, and confessed to the crimes, police said.



The IDF counter-terror operation in Shechem, code-named “Hot Winter,” continues to wind down - though it scored another success today.  The forces surrounded a building in which several terrorists were found, shot and wounded one, and took them under arrest for interrogation. Israeli forces came under shooting attack several times during the night. Three bomb factories and an arms cache have thus far been discovered and destroyed in the five-day operation, and many wanted terrorists have been captured. The operation is the largest counter-terror initiative to be carried out by the Israeli military since last summer.



Military courts indicted a record number of Arabs living in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas in 2006. The 3,523 indictments concerned crimes ranging from rock attacks against Israelis to murder. The increase reflects a rise in the number of terrorist attacks and attempted attacks on Jews, mostly in the Judea and Samaria regions.