Thursday, March 30, 2006

No good deed goes unpunished in the West Bank

In the wake of the Israeli elections the attacks continue to come from Palestinian terrorists. Today an elderly Israeli couple were traveling by car towards the North West Bank Settlement of Kedumin where out of kindness and no doubt obedience to the mitzvah they picked up two separate hitchhikers reports YnetNews Online with tragic consequences.

Three Israelis, a couple and a young woman, were killed Thursday evening when a terrorist blew himself up inside the couple’s vehicle near a gas station at the entrance to the West Bank settlement of Kedumim.

The terrorist hitched a ride with the Israelis dressed up as a haredi man.The al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's armed wing, claimed responsibility for the attack.

An IDF investigation into the attack revealed that the car contained an Israeli couple apparently traveling from Kfar Saba to Kedumim. They reportedly picked up a young woman and the disguised terrorist at a hitchhiking post near the Karnei Shomron settlement, a six minute drive from the entrance to Kedumim, where the terrorist blew himself up. It remains unclear whether the terrorist was wearing an explosives belt or a rucksack with explosives.

Senior al-Aqsa Brigades member Abu Rish confirmed to Ynet that the terrorist was disguised as an Israeli upon stepping into the vehicle, adding that “there were four other people who were killed besides the terrorists.” Palestinian sources reported that the terrorist, identified as 24-year-old bachelor Mahmoud Masharka from the El Bureij refugee camp near Hebron, was wanted by the IDF since almost the beginning of the intifada, mainly for his Islamic Jihad-related activity, but he was able to escape to Hebron and lived at the El Ein refugee camp in Nablus.

It is simply beyond the pale when civilians are deliberated targeted for cold blooded execution but to take advantage of the kindness of strangers while draping one’s body in the garb of the religious strikes me as so profane that mere words could never convey the ignominy of the act. If I have one regret beyond the wanton destruction of life; it is that the bomber did not live to die a 1,000 deaths daily.

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