A resident of Nofei Prat, just northeast of Jerusalem, called the security hotline Friday night at 11:05 to report a masked individual who was attempting to break into his house.
A large force, led by the local security coordinators and emergency squad, who live in the village, rushed to the scene. A siren was sounded in the village, and the residents were advised to stay in their homes and lock their doors. The residents of the neighboring communities, Kfar Adumim and Alon, also received warnings and were asked to prepare themselves. The forces searched the village for several hours but have not found the masked individual.
As previously reported, the new plan which transfers the security of the villages just outside of Jerusalem from the IDF to the police, a plan which the locals object to, also states the security coordinators do not need to be local residents. Last week the police notified three security coordinators from villages immediately outside of Jerusalem that they would be forced to leave their positions due to the transfer of authority to the police.
A local security figure stated: "Everyone in the security establishment knows that terrorism is based on crime. It doesn't matter if there was an attempted break-in or an attempted terror attack; either way, if the local security forces would not have rushed to the incident, it would have ended very poorly."
Noam, a Nofei Prat resident, added: "The attempted infiltration of a masked individual is exceptionally frightening. We are lucky that the security coordinators and emergency squad are right here and are ready to act immediately. I don't want to imagine what will happen in two weeks when a police officer from Maale Adumim takes 20 minutes to get here. In a situation like this, that would be too late."