Buoyed by the murder of 4 Israelis in Monday’s terror attack, palestinian terrorists have tried to end the lives of yet more innocents with another, similar one.
Photo by: Emil Salman
The attack on Wednesday occurred at Rimonim Junction, near the Israeli settlement of Kochav Hashachar and east of the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Around 11 p.m., there were reports of a shooting in the Rimonim Junction area, and a car was found overturned after police and emergency crews conducted sweeps of the area.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Palestinian gunmen ambushed the Israeli car, which was riddled with bullets, he said. Police are reported to have found 20 bullets, which were unloaded into the car which was attacked.
Preliminary reports said the attack was a drive-by shooting, executed in a similar fashion to Tuesday’s attack. IDF troops are continuing to scour the area for the assailants.
Hamas has claimed responsibility for both Tuesday and Wednesday’s attacks and have vowed that more attacks would come.
The group said in a short SMS message sent to reporters on Wednesday that its militants opened fire at an Israeli car and wounded two Israelis, one of them seriously.
“This attack is a message to those who promised that Hebron attack, which was carried out on Tuesday, won’t be repeated again,” said the group’s SMS message.
Abu Obeida, the spokesman for the Hamas armed wing in the Gaza Strip, said in a news briefing that the second attack in the West Bank comes “in the frame of the response to the crimes of the (Israeli) occupation.”
The victims are a couple, both in their 30s. One of the victims of the attack has been identified as Moshe Moreno, who is a rabbi for a pre-army program in the West Bank settlement of Ma’ale Efrayim. He is listed as in serious condition. His wife, who was riding in the car with him, was also lightly injured in the attack.
An Israeli woman was killed near the same junction in 2002 when a terrorist shot at her car as she drove on a nearby road.
The attack on Wednesday was the second shooting in as many days against Israelis in the West Bank, and comes on the eve of the start of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington on Thursday.
Updates (Israel time; most recent at top)
3:24PM: Fox News with the celebratory reaction of palestinians to Monday’s terrorist attack, as well as the response of some Israelis.
2:58PM: Photo of the day:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu looks at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after his remarks on the Middle East peace negotiations in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
But notice the caption. It speaks of Netanyahu looking at Abbas, as if staring ominously at him. But I suspect this photo was taken while Netanyahu was speaking with Abbas, since their heads are tilted towards each other like in this photo.
2:40PM: Senior Hamashole Mahmoud “Nipple-nose” al-Zahar has rejected any connection between his group’s terror attacks and the launch of peace talks.
Senior Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Zahar said there was no connection between this week’s terror attacks in the West Bank and the launching of direct peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
In an interview with London-based Arabic daily a-Sharq al-Awsat published Thursday, al-Zahar said the attempt to link the attacks to the peace talks is “fundamentally wrong,” adding that the decision to carry out the attacks was made by “people in the field.”
“There are those who are saying the timing of the attacks was deliberate, but this is not true. When people have an opportunity, as well as the capabilities and targets, they act.”
I believe him, although I think perhaps they intensify their efforts somewhat around the time of peace talks.
11:16AM: Here is audio of Professor of politics Beverley Milton-Edwards on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” claiming Hamas “is not anti-peace” nor “anti-negotiation,” and are not “anti-Israel” but rather “anti Israeli occupation” (see link to Hamas’ charter in my previous update).
No, actually the goal is to kill Jews. Embarrassing the PA is a bonus at best.
9:04AM: Caroline Glick writes about a new initiative designed to convince Israelis that Fatah are our peace partners.
This week in the leadup to the talks, the openly subversive Geneva Initiative has launched a multimillion dollar public relations campaign targeting the public.
Its goal is to persuade Israelis that Fatah is a legitimate partner for peace. The campaign is funded by USAID.
ACCORDING TO Yediot Aharonot, the Geneva Initiative has hired Ron Asulin, one of the country’s top directors to stage and direct commercials featuring Fatah members telling Israelis they are credible partners in peace. The Geneva Initiative invited Yediot’s Alon Goldstein to watch the recording sessions in Ramallah.
His report, published Sunday, is a fascinating glimpse at the Left’s propaganda shop.
Goldstein describes how Asulin told Fatah’s Saeb Erekat to begin his greeting with the word “shalom.”
“It will be effective,” Asulin promised.
Meanwhile, here is one of the commercials starring Erekat, with subtitles displaying what he really means (hat tip: EoZ).
6:15AM: Outrageous headline of the day: Courtesy of China’s Xinhua:
Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades fullfill its series of promises by carrying out a new heroic operation against hatefull Zionist settlers in West Bank. On Wednesday, 1st of September ,Al Qassam members in the West Bank opened fire on a car driving near the illegal settlement of Kochav Hashachar and east of the West Bank city of Ramallah, at 11p.m.
In a statement distributed by the Brigades on its website confirmed that “This operation is part of the repelling operations against the occupation assaults on Gaza Strip and West Bank, and as a legal response for the ongoing aggression against Palestinian people.”
This second operation, comes one day after Al Khalil operation caused of killing of 4 Zionist settlers by Al Qassam members in West Bank , this reveals that they are able to hit anywhere and anytime, and also sends a message to Zionist settlers and soldiers that their crimes against Palestinian residents will never pass without punishment.
Moreover, it is a message to those cowards who are still fighting and torturing the brave Mujahedeen in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
To them we say, ” You will never stop our legal resistance which represented in targeting the Zionist soldiers and settlers who are still occupying our home land, Palestine”.
Today, our heroic operation represents a significant response to that voices who declared cowardly that Al Khalil operation will never take place once again.
It is a holy promise from Al Qassam Brigades to our people In Gaza and West Bank and to all our prisoners , martyrs and Islamic nation to continue tageting Zionist settlers in West Bank and occupied territories till the liberation of whole Palestine.
We promise that this operation will not be the last, to let Zionists in horrible fear and disability as a normal fate for their crimes against our people in Gaza and West Bank.
They have also published photos from the aftermath of the attack.
6:00AM: Speaking of Monday’s terror attack, here is how some palestinian children reacted to it.
Palestinian children, waving green Islamic flags and making a victory sign, participate a rally, to celebrate a militant attack in the southern West Bank, in the Jebaliya Refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, Tuesday, Aug. 31, 2010. A Palestinian gunman opened fire on an Israeli vehicle traveling in the West Bank on Tuesday, killing four passengers, authorities said, in a deadly attack that cast a long shadow over Mideast peace talks set to start this week. (AP Photo/Hatem Moussa)
Allow me to first quote from the Bible of the intelligentsia, aka the New York Times, which presents this incident on page 4, not on page 1; the early pages are usually reserved for all incidents in which Israelis fight back so that Israeli “evil” is seen immediately and framed as among the most “important” world news of the day. The accompanying Times headline? Unbelievably, it is this: “Killing of 4 Israeli Settlers on the Eve of Peace Talks Rattles Leaders on Both Sides.” It’s really not clear who killed the “settlers.” What is clear is that “both sides” are “rattled.” The piece opens with a paragraph that made me see red, both literally and metaphorically. It reads as follows:
“The killing of four Israeli settlers, including a pregnant woman, in the West Bank on Tuesday evening rattled Israeli and Palestinian leaders on the eve of peace talks in Washington and underscored the disruptive role that the issue of Jewish settlements could play in the already fragile negotiations.”
Note: This opening paragraph literally blames the past and future peace failures on the Israeli settlements. The Times neither blames nor characterizes Hamas accurately. It does not say the Arab Muslim terrorist group, Hamas — the Palestinian version of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza, probably also backed by Iran and Hezbollah, and the group which is claiming responsibility for the attack — is also responsible for a deadly civil war with the not-so-moderate President Abbas; an Islamist war on Palestinian women, homosexuals, and dissidents; and a jihadic war against the Jews, which began a long time ago and which will never stop until either such terrorist leaders and their propaganda are utterly vanquished militarily or until the Jews have been driven out of the Holy Land once again.
On the contrary. The piece also positions President Mahmud Abbas as the “good” guy who, like his negotiating partner, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has “condemned” the attacks. Yes — even as Abbas is busy honoring the Palestinian terrorist who planned the Munich massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic games, Amin Al-Hindi, as well as the Palestinian terrorist Omar Muhammad Ziyada,who murdered an Israeli civilian in a human bomb homicide in 2002.
The Gray Lady does not even tell us the names of the Israeli civilian victims, nor are they in any way humanized. Their histories are not presented. They are only “particularly militant settlers”: faceless, shadowy figures. We are not supposed to care about them. We do learn what Hamas said about the attack, namely that it was a “natural response to the crimes of the Israeli occupation and its settlers.” We also learn that “hundreds” of Hamas supporters “took to the streets … to celebrate the news of the attack.”
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
