Jenin, once the home of suicide bombers, is now the quietest city in the West Bank. After 4 attempted attacks at the Jalamah checkpoint, the residents realized their economic prosperity could stop, and rushed to restore calm; ‘an attack at the checkpoint is an attack against us,’ says local businessman.
By Elior Levy, YNET
Kafr Haddad theme park in Jenin
Jenin, once a stronghold of suicide bombers, is the quietest town in the West Bank these days. After four attempted terror attacks at the nearby Jalamah checkpoint, the people there understood their economic prosperity could be endangered and immediately took action to calm things down.
It’s a quiet morning hour at the entrance gate leading into Jenin. Palestinian workers are standing on the other side of the Gilboa-Jalamah checkpoint, waiting for the contractors to pick them up. Some light up a morning hookah and smoke while sitting on one of the nearby benches in the checkpoint’s well-taken-care-of entrance. A few Palestinian businessmen, wearing nice suits, are quickly making their way from one side to the other. An outsider passing by wouldn’t be able to tell that Israel and the Palestinian Authority were in the midst of the worst escalation of violence since the second intifada.
But the guards at the checkpoint are wound up like a spring and adopt a solemn expression. Their gaze is focused on the line of cars asking to enter Israel, their weapons are at the ready, and their fingers are very near the trigger guard. They’ve learned from experience. In each of the four attempted attacks that happened here between late October and early November, the terrorists came out of the long line of vehicles. All four were children or teenagers, all wielding knives, they were all from the Jenin-district town of Qabatiya — they even all went to the same school.
One of them, Muhammad Zakarna, was captured on security cameras when he posed as a krembo seller (a whipped-cream topped biscuit, covered in a thin layer of chocolate), and then proceeded to run towards the guards with a knife in his hand.
But no kids have been seen on the Palestinian side of the checkpoint for the past month. In fact, nobody walks there, stands there, or sells krembos there. The reason is that 100 meters away from the checkpoint, plain-clothed Palestinian policemen are stationed, wearing black caps that broadcast their identity to all Palestinians. Some check some of the cars that want to go through the checkpoint, others look around, trying to spot potential suspicious activity. Someone told us that there are also more policemen there, whose job is to see and not be seen. The efforts have borne fruit: The guards have already managed to stop three different women who each wanted to perpetrate a stabbing attack.
“The Palestinian security forces are indeed on the Palestinian side of the checkpoint and they prevent kids from coming to it, since we don’t want these kids to die,” says Jenin Governor Ibrahim Ramadan. “They’ve been there for 30 days, in …read more
Source:: Israpundit
