Ruminations: Taming the Untamable

"I parked my motorcycle at the bus stop. As I was leaving the bus stop, I heard a loud noise. I thought it was a traffic accident."
"The terrorist chased me. I shot him and he fell. My legs were shaking. I was praying that the bullet would fire, because if it didn’t I was dead."
"I saw him come out [of the car] with a knife — someone huge, big, a really frightening person — and stab the first person he met near the car. I thought it’s a fight between drivers."
"[But then, the terrorist] left the victim and started running at others to stab them… I pulled out the gun, he saw me. He started running toward me. There was another elderly man near me. I took a few steps back to cock the gun. As he came near me I took him out. He still didn’t fall."
"He continued to try to stab the man who was by me… so I hit him with another shot, and then he sat down and I took him out with two more bullets."
Kobi Yekutiel, civilian responder, Tel Aviv

Police and rescue forces at the scene of a car ramming and stabbing terror attack in north Tel Aviv on June 4, 2023 (Miriam Alster/Flash90)

A pickup truck driven by a Palestinian rammed into a crowd of people at a bus stop in northern Tel Aviv. Eight people sustained injuries, some serious. Among them a pregnant woman who lost her pregnancy. The attacker was claimed as one of their own by the Islamist terrorist group Hamas. Driving the truck directly at passersby, hitting them, he emerged from the vehicle and began stabbing people. One of the witnesses to the attack, Kobi Yekutiel, used his personal firearm to stop the attack.

Just the latest of many attacks, whether vehicular homicide, stabbing or by firearms that take place suddenly on the streets and at the border crossings against soldiers, police, and Israeli civilians waiting at bus stops, students on their way to school, in a volatile outburst of violence. The man has been identified as Abdel Wahhab Issa Hussein Khalayleh, from a village near Hebron in the southern West Bank.

The attack happens to be coincidental to the Israel Defence Forces' days'-long operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, and its accompanying 'refugee camp' known as a hotbed of Islamic Jihad and Hamas terrorist activity. Many of the planned attacks taking place in the past year have been hatched and pursued by Jenin-based terrorists-in-training to earn their stripes as graduates of the Palestinian School of Lower Education, specializing in attacks against Israeli civilians identifiable as Jews.

These ongoing attacks represent the reason that the government of Israel dispatched the country's military to make a stab a clearing away the ticking human time bombs in Jenin. Previous such smaller raids have been brief and deadly. The current raid has been of longer duration, with more depth and intent on destroying weapons caches and weapons-manufacturing depots, as well as having the intention of arresting and placing identified terrorists out of active commission.

"At these moments we are completing the mission, and I can say that our extensive operation in Jenin is not a one-off."
"We will continue as long as necessary to cut out terrorism."
"If Jenin returns to terror, we will return to Jenin – and it will happen much faster and with much greater power than what people might imagine. Whoever does not understand this today, will understand it very soon."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The 12 Palestinians who met their death during the large military operation, along with the 120 arrested since Monday were all verifiable combatants. Countless others during the raid of Jenin hid in safe houses among the population, with the intention of emerging as soon as the Israeli military left the area. Their command-and-operation post, shared by Islamic Jihad and Hamas, was destroyed, weapons caches gathered, and a weapons production facility put out of business. The IDF dug up roads under which mines had been installed.

Tires were set on fire on a street during the attacks on Jenin.

Tires were set on fire on a street during the operation on Jenin.

"The operation in Tel Aviv is the first response of the resistance to what is happening in Jenin", Khalid al-Batsch, an official with Palestinian Islamic Jihad announced. Jenin has distinguished itself in the past year as a hotbed of terrorism, the 'refugee camp' area in particular. In 2002 conflict took place in Jenin, lasting over a week, resulting in 50 Palestinians and 23 Israeli soldiers dying; an event known as the Battle of Jenin.

An "underground shaft used to store explosive devices in the heart of the Jenin Camp" was dismantled by the Israeli army. IDF soldiers also destroyed "two operational situation rooms belonging to terrorist organizations in the area ... a grenade launcher in the area of Jenin, and confiscated weapons and military equipment". "There is no point in the camp that we have not been, including the centre", explained Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the IDF.

It was anticipated soldiers would continue to engage with armed militants throughout Tuesday. One Israeli military official stated that it was assumed that 300 armed combatants remained in Jenin, mostly sheltering themselves from discovery by IDF troops. Some 4,000 Palestinians had fled the camp overnight for shelter with family members in the city itself, according to Jenin's mayor.

This military operation with the intention of clamping down on newly-formed militias in the Jenin camp and surrounding areas has had its limited success.

Yet nothing, it seems, will dissuade Palestinian youth from their aspirational plans to become the next 'heroes of the resistance', spurred on by the Palestinian Authority which claims to be cooperating with Western expectations that his government is a suitable partner for peace. The PA's Fatah military 'division', in fact, not only spurs ongoing violence and indoctrinates children into hate against Jewish 'occupiers', but it also joined the more obvious terrorist groups in the Jenin conflict.