Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has found a way to end Israel’s part in helping the Palestinian Authority pay Arab terrorists to murder innocent people.
The prime minister ordered the government Friday to deduct Palestinian Authority payments to terrorists and their families from tax revenues collected by Israel and transferred to Ramallah coffers.
The Palestinian Authority transfers the funds to terrorists by various laundering methods, Netanyahu noted; the more severe the acts of terrorism, the greater the amount of funds.
“Encouragement of terrorism by the Palestinian leadership, in the form of incitement and payments, constitutes an incentive to murder,” the prime minister said.
The move comes in addition to action on the ground by IDF troops and security personnel.
Israeli soldiers encircled and sealed off the city of Hebron late Friday afternoon following a terror attack on a Jewish family from nearby Otniel. A general closure was subsequently indefinitely imposed by the IDF on Hebron and its surrounding Arab villages.
The drive-by shooting at around 3:30 pm Friday afternoon (July 1) took the life of the head of the Otniel Yeshiva, Rabbi Miki Mark. The rabbi’s wife and two teenage children were also wounded in the attack, which took occurred on Route 60 a few minutes south of Hebron, near the Arab village of Samua.
Earlier in the day a female Arab terrorist tried to attack IDF soldiers in Hebron, but was shot and killed before she was able to succeed in the attempt.
The wannabe terrorist was the cousin of the 19-year-old killer who murdered an eighth grade girl in Kiryat Arba just a day earlier. Hallel Yaffa Ariel, 13, was sleeping in her bed at home at 8:44 am when the teenage terrorist climbed through her window and stabbed her dozens of times, her blood spraying all over her room.
The killer, a resident of the nearby Arab village of Bani Naim, had indeed been spotted on the community’s security cameras as he infiltrated the security fence perimeter. But by the time the local Rapid Response Team arrived to stop him, it was too late.
A member of the security force was stabbed and also struck by friendly fire in the struggle to apprehend the killer. He is currently hospitalized in serious condition in the ICU at a Jerusalem hospital. The terrorist is dead.