Yeshuatami News Blog

All Things Israel

Terrorism

Terror Attacks Since 2015 – a History

By Leave a Comment

We ask for prayer against terror attacks especially during the holidays. Here is a partial history. So far this year (2022) 312 significant terror attacks were foiled and 2,110 arrests have been made. Operation Break the Wave has been instrumental in this effort.

The following is a list of major terror attacks against Israelis since September 13, 2015, the eve of Rosh Hashanah. This is a partial list that does not include most of the daily instances of riots, rock-throwing and Molotov cocktails in which no one was hurt.

2022

July 2022
135 terror attacks. Of these, 113 attacks took place in Judea and Samaria, 120 in Jerusalem and the Green Line and 2 in the Gaza Strip.

Three Israeli citizens were injured in the attacks, there were no fatalities:

  • July 5th, an Israeli man was stabbed in Givat Shaul.
  • July 15th, a Jewish woman was injured in a stone-throwing attack in Samaria.
  • July 19th, an Israeli man was wounded in a stabbing attack in Jerusalem.

The attacks included 1 stone-throwing incident, 75 firebomb attacks, 27 pipe bomb attacks and 15 incidents of small-arms fire. There were also 12 arson attacks and 2 assaults.

June 2022
189 terror attacks. 147 attacks took place in Judea and Samaria, 41 in Jerusalem and the Green Line and 1 from the Gaza Strip. The attacks included 2 assaults with knives, 117 firebomb attacks and 42 pipe bomb attacks. There were also 11 incidents of small-arms fire and 16 arson attacks.

Three civilians were injured in a shooting attack at Joseph’s Tomb on June 30th.

May 2022
208 terror attacks. Of these, 171 originated in Judea and Samaria and 37 in Jerusalem and the Green Line area. No terrorist attacks originated in the Gaza Strip. 

Four people were killed in the May attacks; an additional six were injured:

  • May 5th, Three people were killed and two others wounded in a stabbing assault in Elad.
  • May 13th, an Israeli security force officer was killed in a shooting in Burqin (Palestinian town in north Samaria).
  • May 8th, an Israeli security force officer was injured in a stabbing attack at the Damascus Gate in E. Jerusalem.
  • May 24th, Three Israelis were wounded (two moderately, another sustained minor injuries) from stone-throwing near Huwara, a Palestinian town in north Samaria.

April 2022
268 terror attacks. Of these, 217 originated in Judea and Samaria, 42 in Jerusalem and the Green Line area and 9 in the Gaza Strip.

  • April 7th, three Israeli civilians were killed and six injured in a shooting attack in Tel Aviv.
  • April 29th, an Israeli civilian was killed in a shooting attack in Ariel.
  • April 10th, an Israeli security forces officer was injured in a stabbing attack at the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
  • April 11th, two Israeli civilians were injured in a shooting attack at Joseph’s Tomb.
  • April 12th, an Israeli security forces officer was injured in a stabbing attack in Ashkelon.
  • April 15th, an Israeli civilian was injured in a stabbing attack in Haifa.

The attacks in April included 187 firebomb attacks, 35 pipe bomb attacks, 17 attacks using small firearms, 11 arson attacks and 2 assaults.

March 2022:
190 terror attacks. 11 people were killed (two young Israel Border Police officers, 2 Ukrainian nationalist and 7 Israeli citizens) 27 were injured.

February 2022:
187 terror attacks. An Israeli civilian and a member of the security forces were injured.

January 2022:
141 terror attacks. An Israeli civilian and a member of the security forces were injured.

2015-2021 Attacks

Since the beginning of the wave of Palestinian terrorism that started in October 2015, there were 620 attacks (483 in the form of firebombs) in one month. Eleven people (one foreign national and 10 Israelis) were killed that month and 80 were injured, 37 of them moderately or more severely (one foreign national, 18 Israeli civilians, and 18 members of the security forces).

2015

November 2015, 10 people (one Palestinian and 9 Israelis) were killed in terrorist attacks. Among the non-fatal casualties, 22 were wounded in stabbings (including 5 in Jerusalem and 10 within Israel), 24 in vehicle attacks, and 12 in shootings.

December 2015, 3 civilians were killed. All three of the fatalities were caused by stabbings.

2016

January 2016, 5 Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks. In the major shooting attack in Tel Aviv two civilians were killed in stabbing attack.

February 2016, 3 Israelis were killed in Arab terrorist attacks. In March 2016, terrorists killed one foreign national in a stabbing attack in Jaffa and injured 26, 9 of which were injured in the abovementioned stabbing attack.( Among the non-fatal casualties, 13 civilians and 13 security forces personnel were wounded.

April 2016, Arab terrorist attacks caused 18 non-fatal casualties, most of which (16) were injured in an IED (Improvised Explosive Devices) attack in Jerusalem on 18 April. In addition, on 3 April, one civilian was injured in a stabbing attack in Rosh HaAyin and one border-police member was injured in a firebomb attack in Isawiya (Jerusalem neighborhood).

May 2016, terrorist attacks did not result in any fatalities. However, 12 Israelis – 4 civilians and 8 security personnel – were injured.

June 2016, five Israelis were killed and 21 injured. Most of the fatalities were registered during the shooting in Tel Aviv on 8 June that left four dead and 15 wounded. An Israeli teenager was stabbed to death on 30 June in the Jewish neighborhood in Hebron, and another civilian was moderately injured. On June 24, 2 civilians were injured in a vehicle-ramming attack near Hebron; a member of the security forces in a firebomb attack in north Jerusalem, (29 June); 2 civilians in a stabbing attack in the Israeli city of Netanya on 30 June.

July 2016: 316 terrorist attacks; 1 person murdered and 17 injured. There were 6 stabbings or attempted stabbings, 6 shooting attacks, 1 ramming attack, 8 pipe/roadside bombs, 231 stone-throwing incidents, 51 petrol bombs. Several attacks occurred in Jerusalem; the rest in Judea and Samaria.

August 2016: 414 total attacks caused by an increase of stone-throwing (339 in number) 5 stabbings, 3 shooting, 9 pipe/roadside bombs, 34 Molotov cocktails bombs.

September 2016: 480 total attacks: 14 stabbings or attempted stabbings; 3 shootings; 1 ramming attack, 11 roadside bombs/grenades; 365 stone-throwing attacks, 63 Molotov cocktails.

October 2016: 410 total attacks: 6 stabbings or attempted stabbings; 10 shootings; 1 ramming attack, 10 roadside bombs/grenades; 265 stone-throwing attacks, 71 Molotov cocktails.

November 2016: 423 total attacks (mostly stone-throwing): 5 stabbings or attempted stabbings; 2 shootings; 0 ramming attacks, 12 roadside bombs/grenades; 346 stone-throwing attacks, 41 Molotov cocktails.

December 2016: 258 total attacks; 6 stabbings or attempted stabbings; 8 shootings; 1 ramming attack, 5 roadside bombs/grenades; 199 stone-throwing attacks, 27 Molotov cocktails.

2017

January 2017: 3 stabbings or attempted stabbings; 9 shootings; 2 ramming attacks, 9 roadside bombs/grenades; 293 stone-throwing attacks, 44 Molotov cocktails.

February 2017: 1 stabbing or attempted stabbing; 5 shootings; 1 ramming attack, 7 roadside bombs/grenades; 260 stone-throwing attacks, 53 Molotov cocktails.

March 2017: 10 stabbings or attempted stabbings; 3 shootings; 1 ramming attack, 2 roadside bombs/grenades; 243 stone-throwing attacks, 62 Molotov cocktails.

April 2017: 7 stabbings or attempted stabbings; 5 shootings; 2 ramming attacks, 4 roadside bombs/grenades; 218 stone-throwing attacks, 40 Molotov cocktails.

May 2017: 9 stabbings or attempted stabbings; 6 roadside bombs/grenades; 284 stone-throwing attacks, 63 Molotov cocktails; no shootings or ramming attacks.

June 2017: 5 stabbings or attempted stabbings; 6 roadside bombs/grenades; 131 stone-throwing attacks, 27 Molotov cocktails; 4 shootings; no ramming attacks.

July 2017: 5 stabbings or attempted stabbings; 14 roadside bombs/grenades; 210 stone-throwing attacks, 61 Molotov cocktails; 6 shootings; 2 ramming attacks.

August 2017: 3 stabbings/attempted stabbings; 7 roadside bombs/grenades; 128 stone-throwing attacks, 23 Molotov cocktails; 1 shooting; no ramming attacks.

September 2017: 1 stabbing/attempted stabbing; 5 roadside bombs/grenades; 135 stone-throwing attacks, 27 Molotov cocktails; 1 shooting; no ramming attacks.

October 2017: 3 stabbing/attempted stabbings; 4 roadside bombs/grenades; 170 stone-throwing attacks, 32 Molotov cocktails; 2 shootings; no ramming attacks.

November 2017: 2 stabbing/attempted stabbings; 1 roadside bomb/grenade; 207 stone-throwing attacks, 25 Molotov cocktails; 1 shooting; no ramming attacks.

December 2017: 3 stabbings/attempted stabbings; 9 roadside bomb/grenade; 478 stone-throwing attacks, 111 Molotov cocktails; 3 shooting; no ramming attacks.

2018

January 2018: Terrorist events –Total 332: resulting in one murder and 16 injured. The incidents included 2 stabbings/attempted stabbings; 2 shootings; 1 ramming attack; 4 roadside bombs; 251 stone-throwing attacks; 45 Molotov cocktails.

February 2018: Terrorist events –Total 384: 4 stabbings/attempted stabbings; 2 shootings; 4 roadside bombs; 283 stone-throwing; 49 Molotov cocktails.

March 2018: Terrorist events –Total 300: 2 stabbings/attempted stabbings; 6 shootings; 3 roadside bombs; 240 stone-throwing; 24 Molotov cocktails, 2 ramming attacks.

April 2018: Terrorist events –Total 386: 1 stabbing/attempted stabbing; 4 shootings; 17 roadside bombs; 216 stone-throwing; 33 Molotov cocktails, 0 ramming attacks.

May 2018: Terrorist events – Total 684 (including 190 rockets/mortar bombs): 10 shooting attacks, 2 attempted ramming attacks, 15 roadside bombs, 251 stone-throwing events; 134 fire kites.

June 2018: In Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria – Total 94 attacks: 14 IEDs; two small-arms shootings; 77 firebomb attacks; and one vehicular attack.
Gaza: 29 rocket-launching* attacks (with 76 launches).

July 2018: Terrorist events – 2 killed, 17 injured; 1 stabbing/attempted stabbing; 5 shooting attacks, 0 ramming attacks, 9 roadside bombs, 118 stone-throwing events; 202 arson terror events.

August 2018: Terrorist events: 24 injured; 1 stabbing/attempted stabbing; 2 shooting attacks, 0 ramming attacks, 10 roadside bombs, 125 stone-throwing events; 99 arson terror events (includes petrol bombs and incendiary kites/balloons).

September 2018: Terrorist events: 1 killed, 10 injured; 4 stabbing/attempted stabbing; 2 shooting attacks, 0 ramming attacks, 17 roadside bombs, 128 stone-throwing; 120 arson terror and petrol bombs.

October 2018: Terrorist events: 2 killed, 18 injured; 4 stabbing/attempted stabbing; 1 shooting attack, 0 ramming attacks, 19 roadside bombs, 138 stone-throwing; 139 arson terror and petrol bombs.

November 2018: Terrorist events: 2 killed, 12 injured; 4 stabbing/attempted stabbing; 5 shooting attacks, 1 ramming attack, 8 roadside bombs, 178 stone-throwing; 42 arson terror and petrol bombs.

December 2018: Terrorist events: 3 killed, 28 injured; 3 stabbing/attempted stabbing; 3 shooting attacks, 4 ramming attack, 8 roadside bombs, 270 stone-throwing; 30 arson terror and petrol bombs.

2019

January 2019: Terrorist events: 13 injured; 3 stabbings/attempted stabbings; 4 shooting attacks; 19 roadside bombs; 145 stone-throwings; 30 arson terror events.

February 2019: Terrorist events: 1 killed, 6 injured; 1 stabbing/attempted stabbing; 20 roadside bombs; 129 stone-throwing events; 35 arson terror events.

March 2019: Terrorist events: 2 killed, 24 injured; 2 stabbing/attempted stabbings; 1 shooting (together with stabbing); 1 ramming attack; 36 IEDs; 126 stone-throwing events; 55 arson terror events.

April 2019: April 2019 saw a significant drop in the number of terrorist attacks, compared to March: 126, as opposed to 308.

In Judea and Samaria, 88 attacks were executed in April, compared to 110 in March. 12 attacks took place in Jerusalem, as opposed to 15 in the preceding month. 

No attacks were executed within the Green Line in April, similarly to March. Finally, 26 attacks originated from the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula in April, down dramatically from 181 in March. 

There were no casualties from terrorist activity in April 2019.

May 2019: May 2019 saw a dramatic increase in the number of terrorist attacks, compared to April: 449, as opposed to 126. Out of these 449 attacks, 362 were instances of rocket fire from the Gaza Strip in the latest round of fighting. 

389 attacks originated from the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula in May, up from 26 in April. In Judea and Samaria, 50 attacks were executed in May, compared to 88 in April. 10 attacks took place in Jerusalem, as opposed to 12 in the preceding month. Finally, no attacks were executed within the Green Line in May, similarly to April. 

Four people were killed and ten were injured due to terrorist activity in May 2019.

June 2019: June 2019 saw a significant drop in the number of terrorist attacks, compared to May: 123, as opposed to 449. 

42 attacks originated from the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula in June, down dramatically from 389 in May. In Judea and Samaria, 63 attacks were executed, compared to 50 in May. 18 attacks took place in Jerusalem, as opposed to ten in the preceding month. Finally, no attacks were executed within the Green Line (Israel prober,) similarly to May.

There were no casualties from terrorist activity in June 2019.

July 2019: Five non-fatal casualties and no fatalities from terror attacks in July.

Five members of the security forces were wounded in a vehicle attack at the Hizme checkpoint in Binyamin (Judea.)

August 2019: Two people were killed and eight injured in terrorist attacks in August 2019.

September 2019: Seven people were injured (no fatalities) in terrorist attack.

October 2019: Two non-fatal civilian casualties and no fatalities from terror There were 108 attacks in Judea and Samaria. 

November 2019: Eleven non-fatal casualties, no fatalities. Overall, there were 159 attacks in Judea and Samaria.)

December 2019: There were 106 attacks in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem. There were no casualties.

2020

January 2020: There were 225 terror attacks. There were three non-fatal casualties and no fatalities.

February 2020: There were 161 terror attacks from the Gaza Strip including 127 instances of shelling (rockets and mortars). 171 terror attacks were carried out in Jerusalem and the West Bank. There were 16 non-fatal casualties and no fatalities.

March 2020: There were two rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip during March. 87 terror attacks were carried out in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Of these, 79 were bomb attacks (Firebombs and pipe bombs.) There were 5 non-fatal casualties and no fatalities.

April 2020: There was a single incident of small-arms fire from the Gaza Strip. 71 terror attacks were carried out in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Of these, 66 were bomb attacks (Firebombs and pipe bombs.) There were 4 non-fatal casualties and no fatalities.

May 2020: A single rocket was launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel. 80 terrorist attacks were carried out in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Of these, 66 were firebombs. There were also two knifing attacks. There were two casualties, one of which was a fatality.

June 2020: Four rockets and one mortar were launched from the Gaza Strip. 91 Terror attacks took place in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. Of these, 70 were firebomb attacks. There were also 12 cases of arson and two stabbings. Three people were injured in the terror attacks; there were no fatalities.

July 2020: Two rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip and a total of 92 terror attacks took place in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Of these, 61 were firebomb attacks and 14 were pipe bomb attacks. There were no casualties or fatalities in July.

August 2020: 120 terror attacks, compared to 94 in the previous month. A civilian was killed in a stabbing attack in Petah Tikva (a city in Israel), 6 others were wounded. 106 terror attacks took place in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria.) Of these, 85 were firebomb attacks, 6 pipe bomb attacks. There were also two terror attacks using firearms. 25 rockets were launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip, 5 incidents of small arms fire and one IED.

September 2020: 100 terror attacks. There were no fatalities, although five people were injured, including two members of the security forces. The three civilians were injured by rocket fire from Gaza into Ashdod.

86 terror attacks took place in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria. Of these, 70 were firebomb attacks. There was one stabbing attack, one vehicular attack and eight arson attacks. Six rockets were launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel; there were also seven firebomb attacks.

October 2020: 124 terror attacks. No fatalities resulted from these attacks, but two members of the security forces were injured in a pipe bomb explosion in Nablus. 117 attacks took place in Jerusalem and the West Bank in October. Of these, there were 95 incidents of firebombing, 14 of pipe bombing and six arson attempts. Of the seven attacks emanating from the Gaza Strip, four were rocket attacks.

November 2020: 83 terror attacks. There were no fatalities or casualties.

December 2020: 98 terror attacks. There was one fatality: An Israeli citizen was killed in an assault near the settlement Tal Menashe in Judea on December 20th. In addition, a member of the security forces sustained slight injuries in a firebomb attack in Issawiya on December 15th.

2021

January 2021: 131 terror attacks, with one person injured and no fatalities

February 2021: 92 terror attacks. One person was injured and there were no fatalities.

March 2021: 89 terror attacks, resulting in 5 non-fatal casualties and no fatalities.

April 2021: 130 terror attacks took place in April; there were no fatalities or casualties.

May 2021: Approximately 4500 rockets were launched from Gaza, targeting Israeli civilian facilities in cities, towns and villages. Major cities were also targeted, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. A total of fifteen people were killed in terror-related incidents during May; of these, thirteen were directly related to the rocket arracks from Gaza. In addition, there were 168 non-fatal injuries during the round of fighting and other terror incidents.

June 2021: 185 terror attacks. Of these, 37 originated in the Gaza Strip. The attacks resulted in one non-fatal casualty.

July 2021: 142 terror attacks. These resulted in two non-fatal casualties; there were no fatalities.

August 2021: 142 terror attacks. One member of the security forces was killed in a shooting attack from the Gaza Strip on August 30th, a civilian was moderately injured in a stone-throwing attack in Binyamin on August 31st.

September 2021: 251 terror attacks. These resulted in no fatalities and six non-fatal casualties.

October 2021: 159 terror attacks. One person was injured, there were no fatalities.

November 2021: 142 terror attacks. One Israeli and eight others were injured.

December 2021: 137 terror attacks. One Israeli civilian was killed and six others were injured.

What is the PIJ?

By Leave a Comment

Map of Gaza Strip, Arutz Sheva

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad is a militant terrorist organization that operates mainly in the Gaza Strip where most of its military strength is located. The PIJ also operates terror cells in cities in Judea and Samaria, mainly in Jenin and Shechem (Nablus.)

The PIJ has headquarters in Lebanon and Syria and is a proxy of Israel’s archenemy, the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both are determined to eliminate Israel as the state of the Jewish people.

With Iran’s help, the PIJ has grown militarily and now has an arsenal that includes:

  • Rockets that reach up to 120 km (north of Tel Aviv)
  • Mortars of various ranges
  • Cornet-type anti-tank missiles
  • Anti-aircraft missiles
  • Sniping capabilities
  • Attack tunnels (that penetrate Israel for terror attacks) 
  • Explosive drones and 
  • A naval unit. 

Here is a short film that shows the scope of their rockets:

In the 1990s, the PIJ began suicide attacks against Israelis in Israel and Judea and Samaria, and carried out more than 400 bombings in the years 2000-2005, murdering 134 Israelis and injuring 880.

When in 2007 Hamas, the larger Palestinian terror group, took over Gaza, the PIJ became the secondary terror group. Yet it continued rocket attacks on Israelis across the border.

The PIJ was founded in 1981 in Egypt but was expelled from the country. Its leaders moved to south Lebanon, where they collaborated with the militant Palestinian organization of Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Iran is the main sponsor of PIJ. It funds the organization with tens of millions of dollars annually, as well as providing it with weapons and military training. Although the PIJ is Sunni, and Iran is mostly Shiite, they nevertheless unite to achieve their common goal, the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.

Concerning the Middle East crisis: Iranian leader, Khamenei states that Palestine is “a part of their body and the only solution is the elimination of the root of this crisis, which is the Zionist regime – the Jewish state of Israel

The PIJ claims to be the indigenous people of the land of Israel which they call Palestine and is determined to continue the armed struggle until Israel’s defeat. They do not accept any “Two State Solution” and refuse to acknowledge Israel’s existence under any conditions.

The Enemy From Within

By Leave a Comment

No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. Isa. 54:17

The opening scene of the video “Fighting the Jews”
(Telegram, March 29, 2022)

The majority of the Arab Muslim Israeli citizens are mostly anti-Zionists who usually vote for the Israeli Arab parties which are also anti-Zionists. Some also vote for the two far-left Israeli parties of Meretz and Avoda which support the Arab ideology that Israel should be a nation of all its citizens and not just a Jewish nation. Nine out of ten Arab Muslim Israeli citizens are against Israel being the nation of the Jewish people. Very few vote for the right-wing Zionist parties. Hence, most of the Muslim Arab Israeli citizens are the enemy from within. Of course, not all are terrorists as even in the territories of Judea and Samaria few of the Arabs commit terrorist acts although the majority support the terrorists. The same holds true concerning Israeli Arabs who have Israeli citizenship.

In the Israeli parliament today two parties support the Arab terrorists. They are the Joint Arab party and Ra’am. Even while they officially condemned the last terror attacks, it was just lip service. Iman Udae, the leader of the Joint Arab party, compared the murder of the 5 Israeli citizens in the last terror attack in Bnei-Brak (one was an Arab Christian policeman) to the 51 Palestinian terrorists killed in the course of committing terrors acts since the beginning of the year. How can one compare the murder of innocent civilians with the defensive killing of terrorists? Murder cannot be compared to defensive killing. Udae’s referral to the terrorists as having been murdered actually reveals his opposition to Israel being a Jewish state.

Border Police officers carry the coffin of their comrade Shirel Aboukrat, who was killed in a terror attack in Hadera on March 27, 2022. (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI/MAARIV)

The enemy from within doesn’t include the Arab Christian citizens who support Israel being a Jewish state. Many even volunteer in the Israeli army. Sadly, in the Brei-Brak attack, one Israeli Arab Christian police officer fought the Palestinian terrorist and was killed while defending with his body other Jewish passersby from being murdered.

The Muslim Arab enemy from within has accumulated a great amount of illegal weapons, thus adding to the mortal danger coming against Israel from outside her borders. What can Israel do to win the fight against the enemy from within? One way is to start an operation of going from house to house to find those who are among them, confiscate their illegal weapons and arrest their owners. That was actually what the Israeli forces did in Judea and Samaria at the height of the suicide bombing terror wave in the early 2000s. Now, when Israel is facing the danger of terror attacks from Arab citizens, the same operation is needed.

Last week, the Muslim wave of violence in Israel claimed the lives of 11 innocent people, with many others physically wounded and emotionally traumatized. Israeli Arab citizens, sympathizers of ISIS, committed two of the three deadly attacks, one in the southern city of Beersheba and the other in the central city of Hadera. News commentators link this wave of terrorism to the summit that took place in the Negev (desert area of southern Israel.) Foreign ministers of Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Egypt gathered there early last week to strengthen the Abraham Accord peace initiative that was formed by former President Trump and former PM of Israel, Benyamin Netanyahu. The Palestinians, who opposed that summit, felt that the world was indifferent to their cause.

Although the focus of the summit was the Iranian threat, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and others still wanted to address the Palestinian issue and the “two-state solution,” emphasizing that Israel’s normalization with the moderate Muslim states should not come at the expense of the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

However, as proven in the past, peace with the “Zionist enemy”, as the Palestinians refer to the state of Israel, is not the Arab Muslim’s ultimate goal. If it were so, there would now be peace with Israel.

In fact, Arab Muslims, both in Israel and in Judea and Samaria, resorted to heinous acts of terrorism that killed Jews, a Christian Arab, and a Druze Israeli citizen, as well as two Ukrainian nationalists. Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, Gaza, and East Jerusalem celebrated the murders with cheers, candies, and pastries to honor the “martyrs” who murdered the innocent.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s strong government allowed for the quietest security time Israel enjoyed for over a decade. Now, as the Palestinians consider the current Israeli government weak, terror strikes. Similar conditions resulted in great violence that led to the Second Intifada during the terrible days of the Oslo Accords, under former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, while peace talks were being held between the Israeli PM and the Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat. They armed him and his people with weapons to “maintain peace.” At that time, Israel was willing to make great concessions; still, the worst wave of Palestinian terror broke out.

Now, the current Israeli government promises financial loans to the PA, with the knowledge Abbas is continuing to financially support families of terrorists, even those from Israel. In addition, visits to Jordan, which include guarantees to ease restrictions during Ramadan, such as removing age limits on worshippers, with the knowledge that the youth are the most violent. Finally, the government has remained silent in the face of Blinken’s calls to prevent violence “on both sides” during Ramadan and Passover. Israeli PM Bennett knows very well that there is no comparison between the murderous Arab terrorists and the few Jewish settlers who retaliate by burning a few trees and throwing a few rocks.

Click here to read: about The Danger of the Islamic Month of Ramadan.

Please Pray

  1. Father God, we bring before You the many Muslims who are observing Ramadan and we ask for Your intervention as we pray for their salvation in Yeshua.
  2. In Yeshua’s name we stand against the powers of darkness behind Islam and call in the light of Yeshua to many hearts that seek the truth.
  3. We pray for the Israeli authorities who deal with security to have wisdom and patience. Father God we ask for protection of all security forces.

The Cause of the Current War in Israel

By Leave a Comment

The Arab propaganda (including Jordan which has custodianship of Muslim and Christian sites in Jerusalem) is claiming Israel doesn’t respect worshippers and international law safeguarding Arab rights. East Jerusalem tensions have resulted in clashes between Police and Palestinians on the Temple Mount around the Muslim Al-Aqsa mosque, at the height of the Ramadan fasting month.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel was safeguarding the right of worship but would not tolerate rioting in the compound of the Temple Mount that houses Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israel was forced to take police action against rioters in Jerusalem.

No one is talking about the elections in the PA west bank, the first since 2006, that were supposed to take place at the end of May. (They are now delayed indefinitely.) Abbas, the president of the PA territory was concerned that if the election went forward as scheduled, his party, Fatah, might lose ground to two Fatah splinter groups, and Hamas would take over the territories, as it did in Gaza.

Abbas had to prove to the young radical Palestinians he can be as anti-Zionist as Hamas. He knows the formula of firing up his young people – spreading fake news about Israel trying to take over the Temple Mount by “storming” their holy Al-Aqsa mosque. Adding to the fuel is his denial that the Temple Mount was ever the site of the Jewish Holy Temples. This is the same fiction -perpetrated by his predecessor, Yasser Arafat. Their policy is to reject any history or facts connecting the Jews to Jerusalem. Hamas in Gaza took advantage of the situation to target Jerusalem.

Fake news that the Jews aim to destroy Al-Aqsa and replace it with the Third Temple has been going on for years. Regardless of evidence refuting it, once a lie is repeated many times and spread, it becomes a fact to those who wish to believe it.

The reality is that even when an Israeli politician wishes to visit the Temple Mount, he must get permission from a PA Preventive Security Service officer, as did Ariel Sharon in 2000, a visit that ignited the second Intifada (Palestinian uprising in the West Bank) which went on for four years with many suicide bombings and killing of many innocent Israeli citizens.

It is preposterous but true, that any Israeli, even a high-ranking government official, must request permission from an Arab minor ranking officer to enter the holiest Jewish site in the world. Or because he does, it will cause a bloody outburst of violence.

The Palestinian youth continue to accept the fabrication of this fake news as being true. The fake news continues to claim that the Jewish state does not allow the Muslims to pray in the Al-Aqsa mosque when the truth is that Jews, not Muslims are forbidden to pray on the Temple Mount. Israel’s law grants freedom of worship to all religions. Any statement to the contrary is just an excuse to carry out an intifada, which was most certainly planned in advance.

  1. At this time, even Jordan blames Israel for allowing right-wing religious Jews entry into the Al-Aqsa mosque compound on the Temple Mount, claiming it provokes Muslim passions and raises the risk of igniting the area. “Israel’s illegal actions have dangerous repercussions on the stability of the region.”
  2. Another cause for the clashes is the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where Palestinian families face eviction. Jordan’s King Abdullah II (whose Hashemite family claims descent from Islam’s Prophet Mohammad and draws legitimacy from its custodianship role) accused Israel of attempting to change the demographic status of the holy city, which contains sites sacred to Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.

Jordan had earlier provided the Palestinians with land deeds in Sheikh Jarrah stating it proves previous Israeli owners’ claims to the property are groundless. “The eviction of Palestinians of Sheikh Jarrah from their homes is a war crime.”

Several hundred Jordanians protested near the fortified Israeli embassy in Jordan’s capital, yelling “Death to Israel” and calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador while opposing the unpopular peace treaty with Israel. Many citizens in Jordan are of Palestinian origin.

The Legal Battle in Sheikh Jarrah

What is the legal battle over property rights in Sheikh Jarrah?

The plots in dispute were purchased by a Jewish endowment before Israel’s Independence in 1948.

After the 1948 partition of Jerusalem into east and west, with the Israel-Jordan border dividing them, the Jordanians took possession of the Old City of Jerusalem and gave the area of Sheikh Jarrah land to some Palestinians.

After the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel won control of the entire city, Israeli laws were made allowing Jewish-owned land to be reclaimed from the Palestinians. The Jewish owners then began claiming property inhabited by Palestinian families, some of whom are now facing eviction from homes that they have lived in since 1948.

Last Friday, right-wing Israeli Knesset member, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the neighborhood to announce he would be opening his parliamentary office there. That provoked more protests and violence.

The legal dispute in this East Jerusalem neighborhood must be resolved on a governmental level. The government cabinet could rule that the land and homes in question remain in the possession of the Palestinian residents. However, at this time, there is no functioning government, and the responsibility to resolve the dispute falls to the Israeli Supreme Court, which has a majority of left-wing judges that rule most of the time contrary to the ruling of the government.

Right-wing Religious Jews on the Temple Mount?

Anticipating riots and violence on the Temple Mount, Jerusalem police decided to cordon off the area outside the Damascus Gate and entered the al-Aqsa mosque compound last week to guard the place but ended clashing with Palestinian protesters.

The riots caused the Police to limit buses carrying Israeli Arab worshippers into Jerusalem for prayers on Laylat al-Qadr, the holiest night of the Muslim calendar.

Muslim worshipers pray outside in the al-Aqsa Mosque compound on Saturday night.

As violent as the riots became in the following days, the Israeli police deserve credit for not using deadly force.

A New Intifada

Last week, Hamas’ leaders announced their detailed plans to open a new intifada against Israel on May 9. May 9 was an excuse based upon a combination of three events: Jerusalem Day – Israel’s annual national day celebrating the unification of Jerusalem in 1967; Muslims marked the holiest day of the month of Ramadan, and Iran (who supports Hamas) marked its own Jerusalem Day, the purpose of which is to call for the destruction of Israel and end Jewish rule in Jerusalem.

Hamas’s leaders kept their word. The combination of Arab violence in Sheikh Jarrah, the Damascus Gate, and the Temple Mount, along with balloon bombs and rocket launches againisIsrael from Gaza, arson fires, and terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria, are precisely what Hamas’ leaders said would transpire.

What About Fatah (the PA)?

Fatah (the Palestinian authority party in the territories of Judea and Samaria a.k.a. “The West Bank,”) for its part has been a full participant in the violence. The PA took credit for the drive-by shooting of three young Jewish students at a bus stop in Samaria last Monday, who were critically wounded. One of them died of his wounds three days later, and the other two are still fighting for their lives.

Conflict Background 

In 63 BC, Judea became a protectorate of Rome under the administration of a governor but was allowed a king. The governors were corrupt and often would attempt to squeeze as much revenue as possible from the citizens of their regions and take for themselves as much money as possible. 

Jerusalem, the capitol city of the only remaining Jewish nation, was totally destroyed in 70 AD following the Romans’ victory over Judah’s Great Revolt against Roman rule over the Jewish nation. It is estimated that as many as one million Jews were killed in this Great Revolt against Rome and many were sold into slavery outside the country. 

The Great Revolt of 66-70 AD and the Bar Kokhba revolt that followed 80 years later, were the greatest calamities in Jewish history before the Holocaust. A large part of the Jewish population was either massacred or exiled, and these failed rebellions resulted in total loss of Jewish political authority in Israel and Judah for over 2,000 years until 1948.

After the last revolt, the conquering Romans annexed Judea as a Roman province, and changed the name to Syria-Palestina (later known as Palestine), and built on the ruins of the destroyed Jerusalem the Roman city they called Aelia Capitolina. All this was an attempt to remove any connection of the Jewish people to the land and the city. The Romans systematically drove the Jews out of Palestine. That began the history of the Diaspora as the Jewish people spread over Africa, Asia, and Europe. Some Jews remained and became a minority in their own land.

In the 7th century, the new religion of Islam spread throughout the known world. Palestine and Jerusalem were conquered by the Muslims. They built on the Temple mount their Mosques. 

When the Zionist movement started in Europe in the late 19th century, and as a result of great persecution of the Jews in Eastern Europe, Jewish pioneers immigrated to Palestine and started building the land which was occupied by the Turkish Muslim Othman Empire. These new immigrants bought land to build settlements and cities. The British claimed authority of the land under a League of Nations Mandate (temporary keepers) after Germany, and its Muslim ally Turkey capitulated ending WWI. The French and British as victors divided the spoils of war.

All of this time, there were Jews who lived in Jerusalem. After Israel won the war of Independence in 1948, the Old City of Jerusalem (as well as the territories of Judea and Samaria) fell into the hands of Jordan. The Jews who lived in the old city, including the area that is called now Sheikh Jarrah, were evicted from their homes and fled to Israeli West Jerusalem. The Arabs took possession and began squatting on the Jews’ property.

After Israel won the 1967 Six-Day War, the old city was united with the new City and Israel elected to reinforce its historic and legal rights to reclaim Jewish property and holy sites. 

To reassure the Arabs that Israel had no intention to change the Status Quo, then-Defense Minister Moshe Dayan’s made the infamous decision to allow the Temple Mount – the holiest place in Judaism, as well as the site of important mosques – to remain in the hands of the Waqf, a Muslim religious authority. Ironically, freedom of religion was observed everywhere except on the Temple Mount where Jews were forbidden to pray and restricted in their visits to the site. The Muslims abhorred the Jew’s “filthy feet” even walking on their “Holy Grounds.” 

Even though Dayan believed that he acted in the country’s best interests, it set a precedent that led to the Arab Muslims claiming possession of the entire site.

In 1967, Israel passed a law permitting Jews to recover property lost to them in the 1948 war. As far as Sheikh Jarrah was concerned, it eventually led to a long, drawn-out legal case in which Jews sought to recover this property from Arabs who had been living on it for decades without legal title or paying rent.

Now, as the case is about to be heard by Israel’s Supreme Court, there is a concern that pictures of “poor” Arab Palestinians being evicted from what is considered their homes would be bad for

Israel’s image. The world, including the US, still equates Israel to the Palestinians. “Both sides” are urged to do their best to avoid violence, even though it’s only the Palestinians who are rioting at the site and bombarding Israel with rockets and missiles.

While the Jews who own the four houses in question in Sheikh Jarrah have the law on their side, it would be better for Jewish security that they lose their case. They believe that evicting the illegal Arabs occupying the premises will do more harm than good since enforcing the law will only provide an excuse for more violence.

Arab refugees fled the country in 1948 and 1967, mainly because their leaders urged them to get out to avoid the fighting and promised them to win the next time when they would be able to return and have even more property once the Jews had been driven into the sea. A much fewer number of Arabs were driven out by Israel as a result of bitter fighting during the war. An Israeli law canceled the property rights of those who left to go to an enemy country, which applied to all of the Arab refugees.

The world forgets the fate of more than 800,000 Jews from Arab and Muslim lands who were expelled from their homes after Israel became a nation and their possessions confiscated. They were never offered compensation for their losses.

Even if Jews have the right to recover their property in Jerusalem, does this mean that it is wise to do so at this time? It will and did, stir up resentment, both among Palestinians and foreign opponents of Israel.

By giving in to the Arab invaders, Israel may gain a period of quiet; however, as with the case of Dayan and the Temple Mount, at the end of the day, it will not serve Israel’s best interest, and violence will continue as the militant Palestinians like Hamas, will always find an excuse to fight Israel, whose stated goal is that one day the Land of Israel and Jerusalem will be theirs.

The time has come for Israel to stop giving a pass to Arab Jew hatred

By Leave a Comment

This entire article is from Israel Hayom newspaper

Leftist scholars of Nazism insisted that Nazis didn’t hated Jews because they were Jewish. They hated Jews because many Jews were Communists and Nazis were anti-Communist. By this reasoning, it was the Jews’ fault that the Nazis hated them and in due course, annihilated them. For scholars of the left, the Holocaust itself was a mere byproduct of Jewish membership in Communist parties.

Much of the same doctrinaire thinking has long informed – or misinformed – leftist understanding of the Arab war against the Jewish state. Immediately after the UN General Assembly adopted the partition plan to divide the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine into two separate states – one Arab and one Jewish on Nov. 29, 1947—the Arab war against the Jewish state began. Until Israel declared independence six months later, the war was waged by local Arab militias. The local Arabs were joined by five invading armies the day Israel declared independence. The declared goal of all the Arabs was to eradicate the newborn State of Israel and throw the Jews into the sea to “finish Hitler’s work.” The rhetoric and actions of the Arabs left no room for doubt. Their aim was genocidal and it was driven by Jew hatred.

In 1949 – just four years after the gas chambers were shut down – the Soviets used the Marxist model to legitimize the Arab war against the Jews to a world still embarrassed by the Holocaust. That year, the KGB invented a new term, “anti-Zionism.” The Arabs weren’t anti-Semites. They only hated Jews who wanted to live as free Jews in their sovereign homeland. Notably, as the KGB laundered Jew hatred to suit post-war sensibilities, the Soviet regime was outlawing the practice of Judaism and purging Jews from public life in the Soviet Union.

Outside the Soviet bloc, anti-Zionism was a hard sell early on. It was given a big push forward though in the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War. Israel’s victory in that defensive war placed it in control of the Golan Heights, Sinai, the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria and enabled it to unify Jerusalem. Despite the fact that Israel had a right to incorporate these areas into its sovereign territory both under the laws of war and the borders of the Jewish state as set out in the League of Nations Mandate, the Soviets and leftists in Western Europe used Israel’s control over these territories to build a new, counterfactual narrative to justify the Arab war against the Jewish state.

If the Jews were responsible for the Nazis’ genocidal antisemitism because some Jews were Communists, then Israel was responsible for the Arab aggression because it “stole” Arab land and refused to give up land for “peace.”

Setting aside the obvious logical fallacy – putting the cart before the horse – this narrative made no sense practically speaking. If the problem was Israel’s size rather than its existence, then why did the Soviets and the Arabs ram through UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 in 1975, which said Zionism is a form of racism, and so proclaimed Israel’s very existence illegitimate and immoral? Why do the Palestinians demand the so-called “right of return” of Arabs who left Israel in 1948 and their descendants to Israel rather than a future Palestinian state? And why did both Yasser Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas refuse Israeli peace offers that gave in to nearly all of their territorial demands?

All of these things occurred because the post-1967 leftist narrative of Israeli avariciousness for “Arab” land, like the 1949 Soviet narrative of anti-Zionism is entirely wrong. Yet despite its obvious absurdity, the left’s land-for-peace/two-state solution narrative dominated the international and domestic Israeli discourse on the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflict for the past half century.

This week it disintegrated.

Photo From Israel365 News

The dominant – indeed leading – role Israeli Arabs are playing in the current round of the Palestinian war against Israel puts paid the notion that the Palestinian war on the Jews has something to do with specific territories Israel controls. Israeli Arabs are not burning synagogues, schools, yeshivot (religious schools,) Jewish-owned stores, cars and homes because of the so-called “occupation.” They are not lynching Jews that fall in their paths because of the so-called “settlements.” They are assaulting the citizens and institutions and symbols of the Jewish state because they seek to destroy the Jewish state.

Timing is everything in war and in life. And the Israeli Arabs and Palestinians clearly believe that the time is ripe for them to discard the nonsense about “the occupation.”

The Biden administration is on their side. Not only did President Joe Biden restore US funding to the PA despite its funding of terrorism. Over the past month of escalating Palestinian violence against Jews in Jerusalem and other cities around Israel, the Biden administration has embraced the Fatah narrative that Israel is “provoking” the Palestinians to attack Jews because Israel deployed police to the Temple Mount to restore the peace after the Palestinians attacked Jews. The Biden administration has also adopted Fatah’s antisemitic claim that Jews have no right to assert their property rights in Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem because they are Jews.

For their part, Congressional leaders of the Democrat Party’s dominant hard left faction – Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Betty McCollum and their comrades – are pushing Hamas’s PR line. Like Hamas, they project the Palestinians’ crimes onto their victims. Israel, they slander, murders Palestinian children in cold blood. Obviously, a state that kills children on purpose is a criminal state that must be given no place in the community of nations.

The anti-Semitic disposition of both the administration and prominent Democrats serves as a tailwind for the Palestinians today. This state of affairs makes things more difficult for Israel to defeat its enemies. But at the end of the day, the Americans are not the ones who will decide Israel’s fate. That is the responsibility of the people of Israel.

The Palestinian war, now joined by Israel’s Arabs and supported by the ruling party in America, presents Zionism with its supreme test: Will Israel protect its Jewish national identity or will it crumble under pressure?

Israel must quell the Israeli Arab violence and confiscate all illegal weapons now in the hands of the Arabs.

Israel must do two things to persevere. First, it must quell the Israeli Arab violence and confiscate all illegal weapons now in the hands of the Arabs. Over the past two decades, reports of thefts from IDF bases of everything from small arms to automatic rifles to shoulder launched missiles have surfaced with some regularity. Nearly all of the theft was the work of Arab Israelis and few and far between have been the instances where stolen weapons were located and returned to the army.

Israel’s security forces must use all necessary force to locate and seize those weapons. The Arab pogromists marauding through mixed Jewish-Arab towns lynching Jews and torching their synagogues and their property prove incontrovertibly that so long as huge caches of illegal weapons remain in the hands of Israeli Arabs, Israel’s future is imperiled.

More fundamentally, after 75 years of making excuses and denying the plain fact that antisemitism is the root and the branch of the Arab conflict with Israel, Israelis of all walks of life and across the political spectrum need to accept this truth. As a society, we must demand that Israel’s Arab citizens and their leaders recognize the legitimacy and justice of the existence of the State of Israel. And we must not accept no for an answer any more.

When discussions began several weeks ago about the possibility of forming a governing coalition based on the direct or indirect support of Arab Knesset members from the Muslim Brotherhood affiliated United Arab List, Islamic scholar Daniel Pipes wrote an article considering the issue. Pipes explained that just as there are Judeophobic and philosemitic versions of Christianity, so the Quran includes two approaches to Judaism and Jews. The first and most familiar approach is the jihadist approach. The jihadist approach rejects the Jews, the Torah and Jewish rights to Israel. The second approach embraces all three. Pipes said that the only way to include the United Arab List in a government, or to base a government on its support, is by first demanding that the party’s members publicly declare that they uphold the Quranic approach that celebrates Jews and the Torah and recognizes that the land of Israel belongs to the Jews.

For the past 75 years, Israelis across the political spectrum have passively accepted Arab Jew hatred. The left believed Jews earned the Arabs’ hatred by defeating them in successive wars. To appease their hate, the left has pushed policies that restrain public expressions of Jewish pride and holds Arabs to lower standards than they hold Jews – forgiving their anti-Semitism while condemning rare expressions of Jewish anti-Arab racism with all the passion and urgency they can muster.

The Israeli right also has taken Arab Jew hatred for granted. Its members have argued that the way to defuse or mitigate the hatred is to integrate Arab citizens into all walks of public life, never asking that they first accept the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

The time has come to end this state of affairs. The Israeli Arab pogroms of 2021 together with the Western left’s adoption of narratives legitimizing Arab Jew hatred give Israel no option of continuing to pretend away or excuse this reality. Just as antisemitism was the central animating ideology of Nazism so it is the central ideology of the Arab war against the Jewish state. To put an end to these pogroms now, and to prevent them from recurring, Israel must end its tolerance for Arab Jew hatred and must stop making apologies for Zionism and Jewish peoplehood. Israel must assert its national rights to all areas of this country without apology. It must do so consistently. Israel’s future, and the possibility that coexistence between Jews and Arabs will ever be restored, depend on our willingness to forthrightly demand that Arab Israelis abandon their hatred of this country.

In recent days, we have witnessed severe riots in the city of Lod perpetrated by extremist Muslims, who want to heat the city up and harm the coexistence we have been working on for many years.

As mayor, I see first and foremost the good of the residents of Lod, Jews and Arabs alike. As a result, yesterday I came out with an uncompromising call to declare a state of emergency and bring in police and army forces in order to restore calm to the city streets.

Residents of Lod felt people could die if the government did not impose a closure on the city. This threat and the possible harm to human life is more severe than rocket fire on Israel.

I am not criticizing the police, but the situation in the city is completely out of control and endangering human life and property, and therefore requires a determined response and mobilization of the Israeli government.

Sometimes a map helps to understand
the situation on the ground.

The leaders of the Arab public in the city and the Arab politicians in the country must call for calm, prevent the rift between the societies and work to restore order to the streets. We will not shy away and we will work to increase governance and law enforcement without compromise.

It is important to understand that these are difficult days, after which we will look at ourselves introspectively. But now we must focus on calming the sectors within the country, along with hitting the terrorist organizations, those organizations that do not differentiate between people. Evidence of this can be found when both Jews and Arabs were killed throughout the country by rocket launches.

I ask all residents of the city to avoid violence, to choose dialogue, friendship and comradery and to promote coexistence and good neighborliness.

Lod should be a lighthouse for the other mixed cities in Israel. I am sure that this challenging period will pass, and push us to continue to intensify the momentum of development in the city across all neighborhoods and all sectors.