By The Jerusalem Post (World News) | Created at 2024-10-27 14:30:14 | Updated at 2024-10-27 16:29:19
2 hours ago
The massive rise in lawlessness in the Negev has also fueled the rise in terror attacks.
By SETH J. FRANTZMAN OCTOBER 27, 2024 16:14
SECURITY FORCES arrive at the scene of a stabbing attack in Jerusalem, last month. Contrary to a narrative popularly pushed by Western leaders and the media, Palestinian terrorism isn’t just conducted by the extremists in Palestinian society, the writer argues. (20/4/2024)
(photo credit: JAMAL AWAD/FLASH90)
A truck rammed into a bus stop on Sunday, wounding two dozen people and killing at least one person. The motive for the ramming was still being investigated on Sunday afternoon. However, the incident illustrates rising concern over attacks by Israeli citizens and terrorism that threaten Israel increasingly in the heart of the country.
What this means is that Israel is facing more attacks internally, in contrast to the wars on the borders against Hamas and Hezbollah. A resident of an Arab town in Israel caused the ramming incident on October 27.
On October 9, six people were stabbed in Hadera in an attack that took place. The suspect rode a small motorcycle from one place to another, attacking people. He was identified as a resident of Umm al-Fahm, a large Arab town in Israel that is part of a bloc of Arab towns and villages.
The suspect previously had a criminal background, illustrating the intersection between criminal gangs, criminality, and terror that has increasingly underpinned rising violence in Israel. It’s worth noting this because the last several years have seen a massive increase in gun violence in Israel by armed gangs who use stolen and smuggled weapons, including M-16s.
For instance, in Ramle in September, four civilians were killed in an attack by criminals. The insecurity that takes place in many parts of Israel due to gun fights and assassinations by criminals is also part of the terrorism that affects Israeli society. In the past years, there have been killings almost every several days in Israeli communities by men using illegally obtained guns.
Another source of terror is people who entered Israel from Gaza or the West Bank and remain illegally in Israel. On October 15, Ashdod police officer Adir Kadosh was murdered by a terrorist on Highway 4 near Ashdod. The terrorist was a Palestinian from Gaza who had been in Israel illegally. He also used an unlawfully obtained weapon in the attack.
Rising lawlessness across southern Israel
The massive rise in lawlessness in the Negev has also fueled the rise in terror attacks. A border police officer, Sgt. Shira Suslik, 19, was murdered and ten wounded in the attack at the Beersheba bus station on October 6. The perpetrator came from an unrecognized Bedouin village in the Negev near Hura. For years, the government has permitted dozens of unrecognized villages to spring up in the Negev, such that they now control massive swaths of the Negev everywhere outside of Israeli communities. These unrecognized towns enable people to build homes illegally and live off the grid, not having to obey the laws that the rest of the country has to. As such, the same communities become part of a larger lawlessness in much of the Negev, where armed gangs threaten people, and people have to pay protection money to open a business. As with the attack in Ramle, the intersection of terror and lawlessness and the flow of illegal weapons in Israel leads to violence everywhere.
While lawlessness and criminal gangs are part of the milieu from which terrorism is also increasing in Israel, there are also more organized recent attacks. The other attacks in Hadera, near Ashdod and Beersheba, would appear to be “lone wolf” attacks. However, an October 1 attack in Tel Aviv and Jaffa was carried out by two men from Hebron.They carried at least one M-16-style rifle, which again shows how illegal weapons provide more deadly capabilities to the terrorists. The two men murdered seven people and wounded dozens. The fact that the men were able to enter Israel and carry out such a severe attack illustrates the rising threat of terrorism throughout Israel. The attack was the worst in Israel since October 7, 2023.
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Israel is now becoming used to attacks throughout Israel. Because of the war that has dragged on for more than a year, Israeli society has become numb and used to daily reports of people killed. There was a time in Israel when an attack killing seven would be a national emergency. Nowadays, the attacks that occur every week inside Israel, as well as the near-daily murders by armed gangs, are considered a norm. It comes along with the daily death toll from Lebanon and Gaza. Israel will have to tackle the internal threat of terror and the massive number of illegal weapons flowing to Israel and the West Bank if it is to stop this trend.
