Attention these days is focused mainly on the military operations in the south and the one developing in the north, but security forces in Judea and Samaria are involved in daily incidents and are revealing more and more ammunition, in situations that are very similar to what is happening in Gaza.
Chaim, a resident of one of the communities in southern Mount Hebron who is involved in security, talks about searches of the surrounding villages, confiscation of ammunition, including rifle bullets, stun grenades and other military equipment, IDF uniforms and more. "These are signs that definitely show that our neighbors are not looking for peaceful relationships with us," says Chaim, who has seized many of these from wardrobes and hiding places in the back yards of homes, rifle bullets hidden in a girl's lunch bag, and more.
The equipment and ammunition, he says, are not easily found but involve difficult processes by the various forces. "From our perspective, we have to take into account that a military situation can definitely develop here."
These findings are discovered by specific task forces that locate ammunition following intelligence information. Regarding the reaction of the various security forces to the findings, Chaim says: "The army understands the meaning of this very well. The communities are well prepared to protect their residents against any possible threat. We are taking this seriously."
And while the media ignores the silent situation developing throughout Judea and Samaria, media attention is the opposite when Israeli journalists receive information from Palestinian residents of the villages, who report these raids designed to uncover and locate weapons and describe them as abuse and molestation. These journalists, says Chaim, do not bother to get a response from the regional security or military authorities and publish defamatory articles which he believes are nothing more than a plot.
"They claim that the illegal searches that are carried out here are abuse of innocent residents, who accuse the forces of looting and stealing money and jewelry and harming the innocent residents. This is totally not true. It's frustrating to see that they accept the Palestinian claims without hesitation, without an examination or a phone call to one of our forces. This is very serious."
In Chaim's opinion, it is certainly possible and systematically correct to take legal action against these publications, "perhaps to sue them for libel, because this is a very serious accusation against IDF soldiers of looting, abuse and false arrests, when military equipment, ammunition and more is found in these places. In a time of war, we don't need to worry about protecting our reputation," he says and ends with a clear-cut statement for anyone who has doubts: "We are ready to protect the communities here and we recommend that no one test our sincerity to do this."