Palestinian terror claims two more Israeli lives. Ya’alon’s anti-terror policy is bankrupt
The unending Palestinian campaign of murder against Israelis Friday, Nov.13, shattered another Israeli family of seven. Gunmen shot dead a father, 40, and his 18-year old son, injuring his wife and another son of 13 and traumatizing their three small daughters aged 11, 9, and five. They were attacked on Highway 60 on the road running between Othniel and the Palestinian village of Dura in the Mt. Hebron district.
Not all the information about the attack has been released. It appears, however, that the killers reached the scene in a vehicle and laid ambush to the victims. After their first round of gunfire brought the targeted vehicle to a halt, the terrorists approached it and shot the two injured men again at close range, before racing from the scene. The remaining four family members were injured.
An eye witness reports that a Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance was first to reach the scene of the murders. The medical team got out, looked into the Israeli car, viewed the carnage, climbed back into the ambulance and drove off without offering assistance.
Hamas spokesman hailed the 'heroic' shooting dead of two Israelis near Hebron
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu hearing of the attack vowed to “lay hands on the vile murderers and bring them to justice.” However, those words, heard again and again, sound more futile each time the Palestinians escalate their ongoing campaign of terror with fresh deadly outrages against innocent people.
This bloodthirsty attack on an Israeli family raised the Israeli death toll to 14 and injured victims to 182, further underscoring the bankruptcy of Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s anti-terror policy and tactics, which Netanyahu endorses.
Last Tuesday, Nov. 10, the Defense Minister visited the Judea regional Brigade Command for an update on the security situation. IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gady Eisenkot and the Chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee Tzahi Hanegbi were there, along with the Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Ronnie Numa and the Commander of Judea and Samaria, Brig Leor Carmeli.
Afterwards, Ya’alon voiced the opinion that Hamas was driving the current wave of terror remotely from a safe distance by incitement and activating its local cells.
“The gap between [the group’s] ambition to ignite a tough campaign of violence against us and its failure to do its worst, is [created by] the freedom of action we have given the IDF and security forces for stopping the terrorists before they strike.”
Four days later, the minister was proved wrong. His effort to treat the Palestinian campaign of terror as though it occurred in small or individual pockets divorced from a sea of peaceful Palestinians was clearly not working. The stabbings, shootings, firebombs and vehicular attacks are accompanied by spreading unruly, violent demonstrations from the ground up. While one Israeli security arm toils to control the level of violence, a second is executes government policy of removing checkpoints and roadblocks that contain the terrorists for the sake of easting Palestinian lives and pretending hat the majority of Palestinians has a normal existence. This dual policy sometimes works for a short while and then the violence breaks out anew.
This is exactly what happened this week in Jerusalem and on Rte 443 from Jerusalem to Modiin. Tuesday, Nov. 10, roadblocks were removed from the extremist Palestinian village of Issawiyeh in northern Jerusalem, and on the same afternoon, a villager tried to stab an Israeli passerby on Haneviim Street opposite Damascus Gate. He was shot and killed.
And Rte 443, one of the capital’s two main road links, was again plagued this week by the same old firebombs and rocks after a short respite. The Palestinian villages alongside the highway have come up with a new ruse. After nightfall, they beam blinding laser rays at the traffic to dazzle the drivers and cause accidents.
