UPDATES
9:00 am Israel time, Thursday, July 30 2015
**What has happened at Sa-Nur overnight?
Recall that Sa-Nur was a Jewish community established in northern Samaria in 1978 that was forcibly evacuated by Ariel Sharon at the same time that he decided to unilaterally withdraw from northern Gaza in 2005.
Now in ruins, the entire community was destroyed except for one large building called “the Fort”. The Jewish families that were uprooted then have never forgotten what happened nor have they given up returning to their homes.
Two days ago, in concert with the protesters at Beit El, many of those families returned to their community along with numerous supporters–and have been refusing to leave.
Yesterday afternoon, the IDF and government has reached an agreement with some of the protesters–particularly the families who used to live there. In return for establishing a commission to discuss the four communities forcibly evacuated from northern Samaria in 2005, the families agreed to be bused out Sa-Nur last night.
Jewish community members asleep in “The Fort”.
However, approximately one hundred young Jewish community members have refused to leave and will be taken into custody today.
**Did we get Sami Kuntar or not?
One of the most despicable murderers in the history of Israel, Sami Kuntar was targeted in an IDF air strike in Syria yesterday which appears to have killed between three and six Hezbollah members of a terrorist group directed by Kuntar who were traveling in a convoy.
According to some Lebanese and Israeli sources, Kuntar is among the dead; however, Kuntar’s brother is adamantly insisting this morning that he is still alive.
As you may not remember, Kuntar was a Lebanese Druze member of the Palestine Liberation Front who participated in the kidnapping of an Israeli family in the seaside town of Nahariya on April 22, 1979. Entering Israel by boat, he and his team broke into an apartment building and took Danny Haran (31) and his four year old daughter Einat. Haran’s wife, Smadar, was able to hide in the attic of their house with the couple’s two year old daughter Yael.
As the terrorists returned to the boat with their captives and Israeli security closed in on them, Kuntar shot Haran in the back and then drowned him in the sea. He then smashed Einat’s head to pieces with a rock and the butt of his gun. Shortly thereafter, it came to light that Smadar had accidentally smothered Yael to death while trying to keep her from crying during the kidnapping.
On July 16, 2008 Kuntar (and four Hezbollah members) were exchanged for the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. For his “heroic actions” of shooting Danny Haran in the back and drowning him and smashing 4- year-old Einat Haran’s head to pieces, Kuntar received a Syrian medal and more honors from Iran. In the meantime, Kuntar has pledged to kill more Israelis and was recently given command of a Hezbollah unit in Syria to carry that out.
Kuntar is evil personified. Let’s hope that we finally got him.
**The largest solar field in Israel goes online:
The Ketura Solar field, which has been written about on israelstreet before, went on line six days ago but had “inauguration ceremonies” yesterday.
Containing 140,343 solar panels, the Ketura Solar Field has already produced 1.5 million kilowatt hours which have been funneled into the national grid.
The day is coming when a very large portion of the energy of this country will come from solar power.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Your humble servant can only angrily shake his head at yesterday’s events in Beit El.
The scenes were horrific with sobbing Jewish community members begging the police and border guards not to destroy the apartments and not to repeat what happened in Gush Katif.
It was all to no avail. By early afternoon, the Israeli flag that had flown over one of the buildings had been ripped down.
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What idiot ordered the Israeli flag to ripped down by the tractor? Talk about trying to make a symbolic statement.
Minutes later, bulldozers with electronic jackhammers moved in, and by early this morning, the Dreinoff apartment buildings were completely destroyed.
The destruction taking place yesterday afternoon (picture: ynet).
As of this hour, all of the rubble from the buildings is being trucked out of Beit El.
Nevertheless, at the very moment that the destruction was taking place in Beit El, PM Netanyahu ordered that 300 new apartments be built in Beit El immediately. By yesterday evening, the head of COGAT had already issued bids for 296 new apartments.
And do you know what is happening this morning in Beit El, in precisely the same place that the buildings were destroyed and the rubble is being removed? The cornerstone is being laid for two new apartment buildings. Now that the Civil Administration has given a permit to build the apartments, they will be rebuilt immediately.
It is fair to say that the Israeli “Left” won the battle at Beit El, but lost the war.
So why did we go through the trauma of the past few days?
So the leftist NGO Yesh Din could make its point? So the Supreme Court could make its point? What is being touted this morning by ultra-leftist Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein (who your humble servant thinks was behind all of this) is that the destruction was necessary so we can all say that we live in a nation of laws.
Here’s what Weinstein said:
“Israel is a state of law. There is an obligation for everyone to respect the law and the court rulings without exception.”
Thank you Mr. Attorney General. We already knew that. Not to be cynical, but perhaps it would be more precise to say that we live in a nation of building permits.
Addendum–one final note about Beit El:
It was fascinating to watch on Israel’s Channel 1 television last night as Palestinians from the Palestinian settlement near Beit El watched the bulldozers destroying the apartment buildings. As candy was being passed around to celebrate the destruction, the Arab man who claims to own the ground where the apartment buildings stood smiled and said to the camera:
“There will never be peace between Palestinians and the Jews. We look forward to the day when all of Beit El and all of Israel is destroyed.”
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.