Residents of the Jerusalem Envelope communities, which include the Gush Adumim communities, blocked the main roads in the areas Sunday morning and carried out interrogation, detention and inspection operations on Palestinian Arab vehicles traveling near their communities.
According to them, the activity comes as a result of the residents' fear for their safety after the army left the region about two weeks ago, since which time there has been no security response provided for about 10,000 residents living in the localities.
It will be recalled that the responsibility for the security of the region was transferred from the army to the Israel Police, but locals say the security response of the police does not meet the security needs of the sector in which Palestinian Arabs and Israelis live and travel side by side.
For years, representatives of the localities appealed to authorities to find an alternative solution that would allow full security coverage, but were forwarded from one official to another and remained unanswered.
Recently, there was a further security deterioration when it was decided by military officials, who assisted the police in several security missions in the Jerusalem Envelope, to transfer the soldiers guarding the gates of the communities to other missions in remote areas, such that the the entrances remained abandoned, and the residents were forced to guard the entrances themselves at night.
About a week and a half ago, after the entrance to the community of Kfar Adumim was abandoned, a burglary occurred and a car was stolen, after a long period in which no similar incidents occurred. Past experience shows that such incidents can develop into terrorist incidents that could claim human lives, residents said.
Avichai Shorshan, securitiy coordinator of Kfar Adumim and resident of the community: "The situation today is unbearable. On the one hand the IDF says 'its not my responsibility' and on the other hand the Border Police and the Israel Police say 'we did not get the budgets for this'. In the end, we, a bloc of communities with thousands of families, are in the middle without protection and completely abandoned. The road that passes between Kfar Adumim and Alon is one of the main roads for the Palestinian population that moves between Gush Etzion and the Ramallah area, and this axis is completely abandoned. This road, which is supposed to be in the security hands of the IDF and the Israeli Police, has been completely exposed."
"Unfortunately, what the government and the state do not do - we, the security coordinators and members of the standby squads, have to do ourselves. This morning we went down to carry out a thorough inspection on the road, because we feel that no one is willing to take responsibility, We will do it ourselves," Shorshan said..