A Digest of DEBKAfile Round-the-Clock Exclusives in Week Ending Nov. 12, 2015

Diary of Terror

Nov. 6

  • Fourth Israeli injured Friday by Palestinian gunman at the Beit Anun junction north of Hebron.
  • Two injured earlier when Palestinians opened fire on a group on its way to Sabbath prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarch in Hebron.
  • A terrorist knifed an Israeli man in the chest at Shear Binyamin north of Jerusalem, seriously hurting him. The attacker got away.
  • In Halhoul near Hebron, a female terrorist crashed a car into a group of Israel soldiers. They escaped injury, She was shot and injured. Palestinian riots erupted at the scene.

Nov. 7

  • Palestinians fired on an IDF position at the Police Block checkpoint in Hebron Saturday night. The soldiers returned fire. No Israeli casualties.

Nov. 8

  • Two men and a woman were badly hurt when they were struck by Palestinian vehicle near the Tapuach checkpoint west of Nablus. The terrorist was shot dead.
  • Border Guards police 1st Sgt Binyamin Yakobovitch, 19, died of critical injuries sustained five days earlier when he was run over by a Palestinian vehicle near Hebron. His family, the grandparents who raised him, donated his organs.
  • A resident of Emmanuel, aged 48, was stabbed in the stomach by two Palestinians. He managed to drive to the Elihahu roadblock, reported the incident and collapse.
  • Another Israeli man was injured at Beitar Ilit outside Jerusalem by a female terrorist. She was shot and wounded.

Nov. 9

  • Early Monday morning, a Palestinian woman was asked for her ID at the Israeli Eliyahu Crossing in the West Bank. She pulled a knife and started slashing, stopped only when the soldiers shot her dead.
  • A total of 12 Israelis have been killed, and 159 injured, including 21 seriously, in the ongoing wave of Palestinian terror, that included 62 stabbings, nine vehicular attacks and nine shootings since September.
  • President Barack Obama, when he met Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, condemned Palestinian terror against innocent victims and said Israel had the right and duty to defend itself against terrorism. He expressed his condolences for Israeli victims

Nov. 10

  • A Palestinian firebomb damaged a bus near the Dor gas station on the 443 Rte linking Jerusalem and Modiin and Tel Aviv. No casualties were reported.
  • Motorists using the busy 443 highway complain of blinding rays beamed from Palestinian villages at night that dangerously dazzle drivers.
  • Three stabbing attacks in Jerusalem, two thwarted before causing injuries. But the security guard at the Pisgat Zeev light rail station was moderately injured by two Palestinian boys aged 12 and 13 wielding a knife and a scissors. The victim shot at the boys, injuring one, while bystanders grabbed his partner.
  • A secret network of 24 Hamas activists was rounded up in Qalqilya Monday night, functioning as a regional command center in the northern West Bank for staging terrorist attacks against Israel. Its orders and substantial funding came from higher Hamas authorities in Qatar and the Gaza Strip. The network was bust in a combined operation by IDF and Border Guards police undercover units.

Nov. 12

  • A knife-wielding Palestinian terrorist tried to attack Israelis at the Rachel crossing near the city of Bethlehem on Thursday afternoon, but failed and fled.
  • Undercover border policemen entered a Hebron hospital and arrested a Palestinian terrorist wanted for stabbing an Israeli. He was under treatment for gunshot wounds he sustained during the attack. The Palestinian was removed in a wheel chair for interrogation. His cousin was shot dead when he tackled the Israeli SWAT team.

Other News of the Week

November 6, 2015 Briefs

  • Egypt: Noise in last second of Russian jet flight to be analyzed
    In a much awaited press update Saturday, Egypt’s civil aviation minister Hossam Kamal said it was too soon for a definitive conclusion on the cause of the Russian Metrojet crash a week ago, killing all 224 people aboard, and the investigation needed several more days. He cited the widely scattered fragments of the plane across 13 km as consistent with an in-flight breakup. The Egyptian minister also reported a noise heard in the last second of the flight voice recording which, he said, remained to be analyzed. The wreckage, some parts of which were missing, would now be removed to a “safe place in Cairo,” Kemal reported. He noted that the various foreign representatives taking part in the investigation – Russian French, Irish, Jordanian and German – declined to attend this briefing although he had invited them. Egyptian officials also reported a check being run on Sharm el-Sheikh airport camera footage for suspicious activity relating to the crash.
  • Two months ago, a British jet dodged a rocket while landing at Sharm el Sheikh
    On Aug. 23, two months before the Russian airliner was downed over Sinai, a British Thomson flight carrying 189 passengers had to dodge a rocket as it approached Sharm el Sheikh. The rocket came with “1,000 feet of the missile before the pilot took evasive action. The event was reported to the UK Department of Aviation which investigated it and concluded, “It was safe to continue flying to the Egyptian Red Sea resort.”

Putin halts flights to Egypt until “true causes” known for Metrojet crash

President Vladi­mir Putin halted all Russian flights to Egypt Friday, Nov. 6, “until we know the true causes of the incident” .i.e. the cause of the Russian Metrojet flight crash over Sinai Saturday which killed all 224 people aboard. Several European and Gulf Arab governments suspended flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, but Russia was the first to halt all outbound flights to Egypt. debkafile: Moscow broke ranks with Cairo over playing down the terrorist factor in the face of compelling evidence of an explosion collected by Russian investigators.

November 7, 2015 Briefs

  • Israel’s fifth president, Itzhak Navon, dies aged 94
    President of Israel from 1978 to 1983, Yitzhak Navon’s long career in public life included serving as political secretary to foreign minister Moshe Sharett in the 1950s, chief of staff of prime minister to David Ben Gurion and education minister on behalf of the Labor party. Navon was born in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1921 and wrote extensively about Jewish and Arab communal life in the mixed pre-1948 city of his youth, including the popular musical, “The Sephardi Orchard,” which vividly chronicles his experiences. The Navon family traces its continuous presence in Jerusalem back to the year 1620.

November 8, 2015 Briefs

  • Five Iranian Rev Guards officers killed in Aleppo battle – 40 total
    In the last 48 hours, another five Iranian Revolutionary Guards officers were killed in the fierce battle for Aleppo alongside Syrian army and Hizballah forces. debkafile: This raises the IRGC death toll to 40 officers in the three week battle.
  • Detente gestures ahead of Netanyahu-Obama meeting
    Barack Obama and Binyamin Netanyahu both took steps toward a form of détente after the bitter contest which the Israeli leader lost over a nuclear deal with Iran. The US president said he has given up on efforts to revive Israel-Palestinian peace talks before he leaves office in January 2017. The Israeli prime minister, reaffirmed his commitment to a two-state solution and will be reaching out to pro-Obama Democratic circles and make his pitch directly to the liberal Center for American Progress (CAP).

No good news in the Mid East for Obama or Netanyahu when they meet Monday

The new Israeli-Arab axis that Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu hope to present when meets President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday, Nov. 9, went bust when the Egyptian president’s prestige plummeted along with the Russian airliner. There were four more setbacks: Deepening Russian and Iranian military intervention in Syria inching up to Israel’s borders, Bashar Assad’s survival against all predictions, the strengthening of the Islamic State and a deadly Palestinian terror campaign pervading the country.

November 9, 2015 Briefs

  • Syria and US military aid at center of Obama-Netanyahu summit
    Prime Minister Binyamin reported Monday that he had stressed in his conversation with President Barack Obama that any international deal on Syria’s future must take Israel’s interests into account. Russian military intervention in Syria and the war on ISIS dominated their agenda. Netanyahu underscored Israel’s red lines against attacks being staged from Syrian soil and Iran or Hizballah opening an antii-Israel front from the Syrian Golan. The two leaders agreed to put the 10-year US defense security aid package for Israel in the hands of two national security teams who would start work next month.

Shortly before the Obama-Netanyahu summit, ISIS hit Americans in Jordan

After the Islamic State succeeded in downing a Russian airliner over Sinai on October 31 the terrorist organization put a US military target in its crosshairs. Just hours before the Obama-Netanyahu White House meeting on Nov. 9, a Jordanian police captain opened fire at the Special Operations Training Center near Amman, where American instructors train Iraqi troops to fight ISIS. He killed 2 trainers from the US and one from South Africa as well as two Jordanians and injured another six – two more Americans and four Jordanians. The gunman was killed by Jordanian troops.

November 11, 2015 Briefs

  • Syrian media report Israeli air strikes near Damascus
    There was no comment from Israel on the report by Syrian media that the Israeli air force had conducted at least two sorties over the military airfield near Damascus during Wednesday afternoon and evening. Witnesses reported blasts and plumes of smoke and fire emanating from the reported location.
  • Khamenei: 'Humiliating' deal with West forced Iran to develop nuclear fuel
    Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Wednesday that the "humiliating" terms of Tehran's nuclear agreement with Western powers forced the country to develop its own nuclear fuel (in violation of the Vienna accord). He also denounced the participation of universities students in secular, non-islamic activities.
  • French security forces thwart terrorist attack against naval base
    A 25-year-old French Muslim was arrested in late October on suspicion of planning an attack on the southern naval base in Toulon. He had been under surveillance for more than a year after posting messages on social media in which he expressed support for ISIS and declared that he wanted to travel to Syria to fight alongside the terrorist organization.
  • Russian building missiles that can pierce NATO defenses, Putin says
    Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Russia is developing an advanced missile that can pierce the Western missile shield, in response to NATO's missile defense system, which he claimed aims at neutralizing Russia's strategic nuclear deterrent and achieving the military edge.
  • EU guidelines for labeling Israeli imports from beyond 'Green Line'
    The EU released on Wednesday its guidelines for member countries to label Israeli products made in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan as “made in settlements.” Israeli politicians from a wide spectrum condemned the step as anti-Semitic and “shamefully singling out Israel” for a penalty among 22 other conflicted world regions. One minister said the effect on the Israeli economy would be minimal given its expanding export trade with the Far East.
  • PM's support for non-Orthodox Jews sparks firestorm of Haredi protest
    Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's expression of support for reform and conservative Jews during his visit to Washington sparked howls of protest from ultra-Orthodox members of his own coalition on Tuesday. “As prime minister of Israel, I will always ensure that all Jews can feel at home in Israel — Reform Jews, Conservative Jews, Orthodox Jews," Netanyahu said at the general assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America. "Now, for the first time, together with the Jewish Agency, we will invest directly in the development and fostering of Conservative and Reform communities in Israel,” he added.
  • Syrian army frees airbase near Aleppo from ISIS siege
    In first major victory since Russia’s military intervention, Syria soldiers Wednesday broke through to the Kweires air base in Aleppo province and freed two hundred officers and troops after a two-year siege by the Islamic State.

Russia military surge in Syria: More helicopters, first “volunteer” combatants

Alongside a military surge in Syria, Russia has formulated a peace plan (whose seven points DEBKA Weekly revealed last month) including a proposal for the US to accept an agreed “target list” of anti-peace forces for joint air strikes. Meanwhile, Russia is deepening its military involvement in the Syrian conflict with reinforcements of combat helicopters and “volunteer” ground forces from southern Russia, Crimea, and eastern Ukraine. Russia plans to take the lead of the slow-moving Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah campaigns to cut short Islamic State and insurgent advances on the Homs and Idlib front lines.

November 12, 2015 Briefs

  • ISIS, with 80,000 fighters, holds 50% of Syria and 40% of Iraq: report
    According to a Russian survey, 30,000 Islamic State terrorists h old 40 percent of Iraqi land, while the rest control 50 percent of Syria. The 30,000 foreigners who have joined the terrorist organization include 7,000 citizens of former Soviet states as well as citizens from Western European countries, North America and Australia, the report said.
  • Kurdish forces launch attack to liberate Iraqi city of Sinjar from ISIS
    About 7,500 Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, backed by US air power, launched an attack to recapture from ISIS the Iraqi city of Sinjar near the Syrian border. The ground assault on the ruined city is being carried out by two Kurdish groups and the Yazidi militia. A previous attack on Sinjar in December 2014 failed.
    debkafile sources: Besides the goal of retaking all of Mt. Sinjar and the city, the main goal of the attack is control of Route 47 that connects the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar with the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, which are both held by ISIS.
  • Russians take journalists around their air force base in Syria
    At the invitation of the Russian air force, almost 50 reporters from 12 countries visited Syria's Hmeymim airbase near Latakia, home to the Russian warplanes and helicopters carrying out missions inside Syria. They were shown "the combat work of our pilots and preparations for the sorties" as well as "the data of video control of unmanned aerial vehicles concerning the results of the use of our aircraft in destroying the militant infrastructure in Syria."
Print Friendly, PDF & Email