Israeli envoy urges UN chief to condemn latest terror attacks
After third stabbing in 3 days, Prosor says ‘disturbing new pattern’ sees Palestinian assailants ‘take advantage of a person’s natural desire to help’
Israel’s UN envoy on Monday called on Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to condemn the string of recent Palestinian attacks targeting military personnel and civilians in the West Bank.
Ambassador Ron Prosor said in a letter to the secretary general that Monday’s attack, in which a Palestinian man stabbed a Border Police officer at Tapuah Junction near Nablus after asking him for water, was part of a “disturbing new pattern in which those seeking to murder Israelis take advantage of their humanity.”
In Monday’s incident, Israeli security forces identified Muhammad Bassam Abu-Amsha el Atrache, 22, of Kafr Rai south of Jenin, as the assailant. Atrache was shot dead at the scene by a second Border Policeman.
Prosor also cited the recent murder of Malachi Rosenfeld, who was shot dead in June after stopping to help a Palestinian, as another example.
“Attacks of this kind are especially outrageous because they take advantage of a person’s natural desire to help their fellow man in their time of need, in order to kill him,” the ambassador said. “These are acts that no decent person would tolerate.”
“Not only do such attacks pose a grave threat for Israelis, they may well harm those Palestinians who are genuine in need of assistance,” he said.
He called on Ban to condemn the recent attacks, and “to publicly call on the Palestinian Authority to condemn those responsible for these attacks, and to do everything in their power to prevent future attacks.” Prosor noted that the PA not only refuses to condemn attacks on Israelis in the West Bank, but “they also fund people who serve time in prison for carrying them out.”
Monday’s attack came two days after a Border Police officer was lightly wounded when he was stabbed by a Palestinian man near the same West Bank junction. In that incident as well, the assailant was shot and killed.
That attack came hours after an IDF soldier was lightly wounded by a Palestinian wielding a knife at the Ofer checkpoint in the West Bank, north of Jerusalem. The attacker in that incident was shot and wounded at the scene.
The incidents were the latest in a string of attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians in the West Bank over the last several weeks. Earlier this month, three soldiers were wounded when a Palestinian plowed his car into them while they were on a foot patrol in the northern West Bank.
Days later, an Israeli civilian was stabbed and moderately wounded in an attack by a Palestinian man at a gas station on Route 443. And on Friday evening, a gas station was set alight on Route 60, near the West Bank settlement of Eli, by unknown assailants who fled the scene.
Israeli officials have warned of a possible uptick in violence in the West Bank after the fatal firebombing of a Palestinian home in the village of Duma in the northern West Bank, apparently by Jewish extremists, in late July.