A crowd gathers in front of the East Jerusalem border crossing near Jabel Mukaber on Monday after a border guard was lightly wounded in a terrorist attack (via @manniefabian on Twitter)
Two stabbing attacks targeted Israeli service members in Samaria (the northern West Bank) and East Jerusalem today. The first attack occurred as a unit of IDF soldiers were patrolling near the Isareli Amichai settlement in the West Bank, northeast of the city of Ramallah. The unit was approached by a group of Palestinian men, two of whom rushed at the soldiers with sharp tools, but were shot in the lower extremities before they could reach their intended targets. Both attackers were rushed to the hospital in serious condition.
The second attack occurred at a Jerusalem border crossing, where a male resident of East Jerusalem rushed at a border guard with a box cutting tool, yelling “Allahu Akbar.” The terrorist managed to lightly wound the officer before he was subsequently shot and rushed to an Israeli hospital in critical condition. Both attacks come just five days after Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas ended security cooperation with Israeli authorities and withdrew from the Oslo peace framework in a political row over Jerusalem’s plan to annex the Jordan Valley on the eastern flank of the Palestinian territory, which serves as the natural borderline between Israel and Jordan. Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu swore today that plans for a July 1 annexation would not be delayed by attacks.
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Elsewhere, in Southern Israel, incendiary balloons were floated from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip into Israeli territory, landing in fields near the religious community of Shuva, where they started a fire. Until today, Israeli communities in the “Gaza Envelope” (territory surrounding the Gaza Strip within striking distance of rocket and mortar fire) had seen a brief respite from the balloon attacks since a tacit ceasefire was mediated between Israel and Hamas earlier this year.
A parade of Hezbollah militants along the “Blue Line” that serves as a border between Lebanon and Israel rounded out a busy day for Israeli security forces. The Iranian-sponsored militants were celebrating the 20th anniversary since the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon in 2000. No incidents were reported during the parade, although the IDF deployed flares nearby in the Israeli Golan Heights early this morning, ostensibly to monitor the nighttime activity of militants inside Syria. Hezbollah has been active near the “Purple Line” demarcation between Syria and the Israeli Golan Heights, leading to several Israeli airstrikes in the Quneitra region of southwest Syria earlier this year.
