Ringing in the new year

Military affairs from Iraq to Hebron are the top stories as Israel and the Jewish world head into the New Year. On Rosh Hashanah eve, the press wrangles with US airstrikes on the Islamic State, a Syrian plane shot down over the Golan Heights, and the killings of two suspected terrorists by the IDF in the West Bank.

Right-wing tabloid Israel Hayom leads off with the killing of Marwan Kawasme and Amer Abu Aysha in a gunfight with the IDF in Hebron early Tuesday morning. The paper reports that the two men, suspected of murdering three Israeli teens three months ago, were surrounded by Israeli troops in a building in the West Bank city. After the men refused to surrender, the IDF bulldozed the building, at which point Kawasme and Abu Aysha exited with assault rifles and were shot. Abu Aysha was killed on the spot, but Kawasme was injured and fell into the basement of the half-ruined building.

“The forces continued to fire into the basement, threw grenades into it and chucked in an explosive charge,” Israel Hayom reports. “Several hours later Kawasme’s corpse was removed from the place, completely unrecognizable.”

Throughout, the paper notably forgoes any mention of “alleged” or “suspected” or “accused” in reference to Kawasme and Abu Aysha, instead referring to them as “the kidnappers and murderers.” Yedioth Ahronoth uses equally damning language, saying that after 100 days on the lam, “the long arm of the security forces got the two terrorists who did the deed,” and “the circle is closed.”

The parents of one of the murdered teens, Iris and Uri Yifrach, are quoted by the paper reacting to the news of Kawasme and Abu Aysha’s deaths, saying, “This is the moment we’ve waited and prayed for,” and “It doesn’t help the pain and absence, but there’s justice.”

Haaretz is the only paper that notes in its coverage of the killings (which it buries on Page 5) that the two men were suspected of the murders. Contrary to the Israel Hayom report, Haaretz says that one body was located but has yet to be identified, and the second was buried beneath the rubble of the building the two were in, which the IDF bulldozer demolished.

The paper’s top story is a day-old report on American airstrikes on Islamic State and Nusra Front targets in Syria, operations which were carried out with assistance from five of the US’s Arab allies. Haaretz reports that American and Israeli officials said that the US provided Israel with detailed information about the targets ahead of the operation, and coordinated with the IDF and Israeli government throughout so as to prevent any mishaps.

Because the Arab states participating in the airstrikes on northern Syria don’t have relations with Israel, Haaretz says, “the Americans wanted to prevent a situation in which Israel accidentally identifies Arab fighter aircraft as enemy planes en route to [Israel’s] territory.”

Speaking of bogeys approaching Israeli airspace, Israel’s downing of a Syrian military plane along the border with the Golan Heights makes for eye-catching photos and headlines in the papers. Yedioth Ahronoth reports that the interception of the Su-24 by a Patriot missile after the jet entered Israeli territory at 9 a.m. was the first operational downing of a military aircraft by Israel in nearly 29 years.

Israel Hayom reports that the Patriot missile battery tracked the plane’s approach toward the border at 8:57 a.m., and that from the time the decision was made to shoot it out of the sky and the execution, 80 seconds had passed (it doesn’t say whether that’s a particularly long time or not, however).

Haaretz says that in previous incidents of this kind, when Syrian military aircraft approached Israeli airspace, the IAF scrambled fighters and fired on the planes, but without incident. Israel’s policy, it notes, is to send up interceptors whenever there’s an approaching Syrian plane.

Little of what’s in the papers addresses the Jewish New Year, which kicks off Wednesday night. Haaretz runs an op-ed by Amos Harel entitled “New year, new regional order,” but he just rehashes the incidents covered in the papers and concludes that “there are now so many different variables in the strategic situation that it’s very difficult to make predictions for the year to come.”

Yedioth Ahronoth runs a couple cutesy op-eds on Page 2, with pictures of beaming children holding shofars and pomegranates, in which Ra’anan Shaked says 5775 will be a good year, because it can only get better than the last one, and in which President Reuven Rivlin calls on Israelis to open their hearts to one another, especially residents of the south.