Yom Shleeshee
Tuesday
1 Tammuz 5783
June 20 2023
The Photos of the Day
This is 20-year-old Jonathan Hirsch, an orthodox Jew.
Jonathan was riding on a bus near Hod Hasharon yesterday when he was verbally attacked and cursed at by a woman across the aisle. Out of the blue, she called him various names that we will not reprint here, and accused him of being a parasite who is unwilling to serve his country.
This is the same Jonathan Hirsch. We should call Jonathan “Captain Hirsch” because he is a captain in an elite combat unit of the IDF.
Following the woman’s initial tirade, he turned to her patiently and asked: “Why do you assume that I didn’t serve in the army? Because I wear a kippah? White shirt? So it’s simply unacceptable and wrong for you to judge people like that.”
She responded with more curses, at which time he told her that he was in the IDF and had already served several years.
It made no difference to the woman, but finally she grew quiet.
Afterwards, a reporter tracked her down, at which time she launched into yet another tirade saying among other things: “I am anti-Orthodox. They have 10 children. I’m afraid of them. They have no place in Israel.”
Actions and comments like hers are the direct result of the last two years of hatred that Yair Lapid, Benny Gantz, and Avigdor Lieberman and their friends in the mainline Israeli media have heaped on the religious community. They have sown the seeds of division and now we see the results.
The News on the Israeli Street
and
TODAY’S BLOG
The War in Judea and Samaria
Palestinian terrorists carried out a major ambush attack on our forces in Jenin yesterday.
5 Border Police officers and 2 IDF soldiers were wounded, three seriously.
5 terrorists were killed along with more than 66 others wounded, many critically.
The sequence of events:
1. Early yesterday morning, undercover Border Police and IDF forces entered the Wadi Brokin area of Jenin to capture 2 wanted Islamic Jihad terrorists.
2. After capturing them they attempted to exit the city but called in help to do so. An armored Panther vehicle (supposedly impervious to roadside bombs was sent).
Click here to see the 21 second video made by Islamic Jihad to show what happened to the vehicle.
It is estimated that the bomb that you saw exploding in the video was a 40 kg IED of the type used by Hezbollah in Lebanon.
3. After the vehicle was blown up, other soldiers entered the area to save those in the vehicle. Other vehicles were hit. An intense firefight followed that lasted for several hours with much of the terrorist fire coming from a nearby mosque. An IAF combat helicopter was called in (for the first time in 20 years in Judea and Samaria) to clear an area for extraction.
4. Finally, the wounded were evacuated to Rambam Hospital in Haifa.
Other run-over attacks:
Palestinian terrorists tried to run over IDF soldiers in northern Samaria at Naslat Zaid. Two soldiers were lightly wounded. Two terrorists were shot.
Palestinian terrorists tried to run over IDF soldiers near Adam. No soldiers were physically wounded; the terrorists were captured.
“Rock”, Molotov, and IED attacks:
Palestinian terrorists attacked our forces with Molotovs in the Husan. Two terrorists were shot and killed.
Other attacks took place near Beitar, Beit Anon, north of Kiryat Arba, between Beitar and Al Khader, between Gush Etzion and Hevron at Al Aruv, Beit Omer, and other places.
In summary:
For some months now, your humble servant has devoted a section of this blog to “The War in Judea and Samaria.”
That war continues to escalate. As we noted above, some of the weaponry used by Islamic Jihad in the Jenin ambush may well have come from Hezbollah via Iran.
Jenin itself has become the Gaza of Samaria with the PLO having lost all control to the many terror groups operating there–primarily Islamic Jihad.
The question is whether an all-out assault on Jenin needs to take place or whether Israel can continue doing raids like the one yesterday–raids that are becoming more dangerous by the minute.
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.