UPDATES
9:00 am Israel time, Tuesday, September 1 2015
**School daze . . .
First graders this morning in Israel (picture: walla).
Today is the first day of the school year in Israel for 1,689,939 students in grades K-12. Of these students 157,477 will be in the first grade.
There are 166,208 teachers in the system who will be teaching in 68,271 classes. In response to major criticism of the increasing number of students per class (called the “sardines protest”), the average class size has been reduced to 28.
The person leading the push to decrease class sizes is Education Minister Naftali Bennett–who has also led the effort to increase the number of math courses that high school students must complete. In the latter regard, there will be a 33% increase this year in the number of students completing five courses of math instead of four.
What does the beginning of the school year mean for Israelis outside of the school context? Massive traffic jams, empty beaches and cinemas, and fewer shoppers in the malls.
**The daily Palestinian terror report . . .
It has been a night of extreme violence in Israel focused on eastern Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the area around Gaza.
At 9:17 pm, an IDF soldier was wounded near Rachel’s Tomb outside Bethlehem when his patrol was assaulted by terrorists throwing IEDs.
At 10:15 pm, Arabs threw an IED which exploded on a security vehicle in Ir David (Silwan) in Jerusalem.
At 10:33 pm, a shootout occurred near Jenin (see today’s blog) as IDF forces attempted to arrest the leader of Islamic Jihad in Samaria. One soldier was seriously wounded. Unconfirmed reports are that six terrorists were killed.
At 11:06 pm, Palestinian terrorists carried out a Molotov cocktail attack at the “David” position in Benyamin.
At 11:24 pm, Arab terrorists threw Molotov cocktails at Jewish homes in East Talpiot.
At 5:21 am, about three and a half hours ago, at least one missile was fired out of Gaza at the citizens of southern Israel.
**The saga of the Golani soldier who was attacked at Nabi Saleh continues . . .
Back on July 6, 2013, your humble servant published a blog entitled: “Nariman Tamini: A Third Rate Palliwood Lawbreaker”.
In that blog, a number of pictures were posted of Tamini and her daughters out in Judea and Samaria attempting to provoke soldiers and get themselves into positions in which they could be photographed being “attacked” by the same soldiers. At the conclusion of that blog, israelstreet posted this picture of Tamini and her daughters being rewarded in Ramallah for their “acting”:
Fast forward to last Friday. Look at the picture we posted then, and see if you recognize anyone:
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Yes, it is the mother-daughter Pallywood bad acting team together again–along with more members of the family–including the boy on the ground that the soldier is attempting to hold down.
It turns out that the boy is an accomplished actor in his own right. One of the criticisms made of the Golani soldier the other day was that “the poor Palestinian boy had a broken arm with a cast on it”.
However it appears that the cast is just a useful prop that the boy uses on either arm with equal effect:
Note that the picture on the right in which the boy has the cast on his right arm is from a Tamini facebook post in May of last year. Last Friday, he had it on his left arm.
**Something else smells fishy . . .
It appears that the Egyptians have come up with interesting plan to rid themselves of the Gaza tunnel problem once and for all.
The moat that we all thought was being built around Gaza is actually a series of fish farms where the Egyptian military is going to grow mullet.
TODAY’S BLOG:
What happened last night at Wadi Burqin near Jenin remains somewhat unclear this morning.
Apparently the goal of a combined Border Guard/IDF/Shin Bet/SWAT (Yamam) operation was twofold: first, the soldiers were attempting to capture Majdi Abu Al-Hija and his brother Ala–two terrorists whose father is serving time in an Israeli prison and whose brother Jamal was killed three years ago in Jenin. Second, the soldiers were attempting to capture Bassam Ragheb al-Sa’adi, a long-time leader of Islamic Jihad in Judea and Samaria.
As the operation began, the force of Israelis was in the process of circling the Al-Hija home when shooting and Molotov cocktail throwing broke out. It was at this point that one Border Guard was seriously wounded (he is currently in the ICU ward at Haifa’s Ramban Hospital). The Al-Hija brothers were captured.
The Israeli contingent then continued on to al-Sa’adi’s home. Another firefight ensued during which our troops hit al-Saadi’s home with two missiles. A bulldozer was called in that then leveled al-Saadi’s home. In this battle, six Palestinian terrorists were reportedly killed, and one of them was Bassam Ragheb al-Sa’adi.
If al-Sa’adi was indeed killed–and it remains unconfirmed–his is a death that is long overdue.
For decades, he was involved in the financing, arming, planning, and executing of terrorist attacks against Israelis. For example, it was his group in Jenin that carried out 11 suicide bombings in Israel between July 16, 2001 and October 21, 2002 which killed 58 men, women, and children and severely wounded several hundred more.
Why he has been allowed to live as long as he is anybody’s guess.
Let’s all hope we got him this time.
Addendum: If we did get al-Sa’adi, southern Israel can expect incoming missiles during the course of the day.
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.