Monday, September 24, 2007

Terror attempt foiled

This would have been the headline: "Dozens killed as suicide bomber explodes himself inside Tel Aviv Synagogue on Yom Kippur," with sub-head "Nablus member of Hamas evades Israeli security." But luckily it didn't happen, thanks only to the brave activities of our security services.
First, there was a credible threat of an imminent major terrorist attack during the Yom Kippur holiday from Hamas. Second, ca. 90% of recent terrorist attacks have come from Nablus on the West Bank. So the IDF mounted a major operation in Nablus, and shut the city down while they searched. During a period of 4 days before Yom Kippur several Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed and many injured in several intense firefights.
The head of Hamas in Nablus, Niad Shakrit, was arresting as well as 50 other terrorists. One of those caught was the intended suicide bomber for this explosion in Tel Aviv and another was his handler. However, the actual explosives belt that was to be used was not found in Nablus. Shakrit gave the Shin Bet information that led them to a Palestinian living in an apartment in south Tel Aviv. When the security forces tried to enter the apartment they were met with resistance from 4 or 5 Palestinians illegally living there. In the apartment they found the missing sucide bomb belt. It was destroyed by the Israeli forces in a controlled explosion. Result, no terrorist incident and no Israelis killed!
Now during this incident there would no doubt have been protests from well-meaning Jewish liberals and others that the IDF and security forces should not be "occupying" Nablus, and should not be "harassing" Palestinians and definitely should not be arresting so many "civilians." Then, if the intention to kill as many Israelis as possible had been successful, there would have been the usual warnings from well-intentioned "friends," the UN, EU, UK and even the US, telling Israel not to "over-react." But, the damage would have been done and nothing could bring back the dead. And don't think these extremists would shrink from killing Jews praying on Yom Kippur, after all they started a war on that day in 1973 in order to catch us unprepared.
So now, with the 50 or so suspects in custody, hopefully the Shin Bet will glean a lot of useful intelligence from them, and sweep up some more of these thugs. That's why Israel holds ca. 10,000 prisoners, and that's why they have been unsuccessful in their attempts for some time. Nevertheless, they keep on trying, and unfortunately occasionally they do succeed. But, they cannot change the basic situation, so when will they and their leaders realize that their efforts are futile and that as time goes by they become less and less able to carry out their evil intentions.

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