Threats, Tunnels and Terrorists

As the Passover festival approaches, a brief review of the news reveals aspects of terrorist activity on both sides of the struggle in Israel. On Saturday 16^th April the town of Kafr Ni'me, west of Ramallah, saw a demonstration in support of the terrorist group Hezbollah.

(Photo from Ynet News)

Then on Monday the IDF announced that they had found and destroyed a ‘terror tunnel’ that Hamas had built from Gaza into Israel. That announcement quickly drew the following threat from the Kassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas:

"The preparation for war continues in all arenas, and what the enemy uncovered today
is but a drop in a sea of moves the resistance has prepared in order to
protect its people, free its prisoners and liberate its land."

Monday also saw an explosion on a bus that wounded 21 people, 2 of them seriously. Details of the incident are still scarce, but it seems that a bomb exploded on one bus, and that a second bus and a car were caught up in the explosion. 

Then on Tuesday came the news that an Israeli court had convicted a 31-year-old Israeli of abducting and murdering a Palestinian teenager in 2014, rejecting the accused’s plea of insanity. Yosef Haim Ben-David was found to have been fully responsible for his actions when he and two nephews abducted Muhammad Abu Khdeir and killed him on 2nd July 2014.

And today comes the news that Israeli security forces have arrested a number of people suspected of belonging to a Jewish terror group that is alleged to have carried out a series of attacks against Palestinian targets in the second half of 2015.

All of this comes within the context of further incitement to violence by an Arab member of the Knesset, Jamal Zahalka. He has called on the Palestinian leadership to reignite the ‘popular struggle’ against occupation, and not leave it to ‘lone-wolf attacks’.

Added to his voice is that of Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement within Israel. In a video released on Tuesday, he called upon the entire Islamic nation to save al-Aqsa from:

"crazy and very dangerous schemes that the Israeli occupation
plans to carry out during the Passover holiday."

With all these threats, tunnels and terrorists, the prospects for peace in Israel at Passover do not look good.