It was released for publication Sunday that the Shin Bet and Israel Defense Forces troops recently arrested a member of a Hamas cell that planned to attack the convoy of prime minister Ariel Sharon.
The arrested man is Fadi Murtaja, a Hamas militant from the area near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. The cell was given orders by the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip, and also planned to carry out a shooting attack on a synagogue.
The arrested man is Fadi Murtaja, a Hamas militant from the area near the West Bank city of Bethlehem. The cell was given orders by the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip, and also planned to carry out a shooting attack on a synagogue.
Last night shots were fired on the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo, Anafa Road. I have friends who live just one road up. They have told me in the past that this is an occurrence they can hear very clearly, when it happens.
The statistics for February are out: In February, according to Ynet and Maariv (Hebrew links), 57 terrorist attacks were thwarted and 44 terrorists who planned to perpetrate suicide attacks were arrested. In January, 52 warnings of imminent suicide attacks were received. Out of the 57 attacks thwartes, 44 were prevented by arresting the terrorists, 4 by killing the terrorists and 9 as a result of IDF and Police deployment. Out of the 57, 13 were to have been so-called suicide bombings (and I say mass-murder suicide attacks) in Israel, 4 were to have been shooting "self-sacrifice" attacks in Israeli inhabited areas, 5 were to have been attacks on settlements and IDF outposts in the Gaza strip and two were to have been car bombs. Palestinians had planned a total of 22 suicide and penetration shooting attacks (I'm not sure how this works out, but this is the data they gave in Ynet).
All this and only 28 days in February.
The security forces stressed that the small amount of attacks that took place had nothing to do with Palestinian activites or as a result of a Palestinian decision to refrain from such attacks. The only reason attacks had been thwarted, thus the security forces spokespeople, was the presence of Israel forces in the cities of the West Bank and the intensive activities therein, and the forces' success in containing the terrorism in Gaza as a result of the security fence surrounding the strip.
They said a large scale attack could still slip past them any day.
Just thought you'd like to be filled in, and now I'm late with my sandwich making.