‘It’s an intifada’: Life-threatening attacks occur daily in Judea and Samaria, risk of civil war

Right-wing activists says residents of Judea and Samaria are “living in a war” with “people wounded every day,” yet issue is largely ignored by the mainstream media.

By World Israel News Staff

In recent weeks, dozens of rock-throwing attacks in Judea and Samaria have resulted in hospitalizations, car crashes and serious injuries.

On Sunday, a resident of Rechelim, near Ariel, was hospitalized after an Arab smashed the windshield of her car while she drove at a high rate of speed.

“I saw masked men on the road, right on the guardrail, throwing rocks at cars,” Yael Israeli, the victim, told Ynet.

“One of the rocks smashed the windshield and entered the car. It was very frightening. The whole car, including me, was filled with shards of glass. These were rocks thrown with the intention to kill.”

In an incident just days earlier, Vered Sabag’s car was attacked by stone throwers south of Jerusalem, near Anatot.

“I was concentrating on driving when suddenly I heard a crazy boom,” she told Ynet. She immediately checked to make sure that her infant daughter in the back seat was okay.

“The car was full of glass. I had to remove shards of glass from my daughter’s head. It was a miracle that we survived.”

The perpetrators of both attacks were not apprehended. Israeli’s and Sabag’s stories are just two of many similar incidents that have occurred in the last few weeks.

But the ongoing security threat has gone mostly unreported by mainstream media, save for an incident in which the granddaughter of an MK was wounded in a rock-throwing attack.

Ayelet Lash, a prominent right-wing activist who lives in Samaria, told World Israel News that the media intentionally avoids reporting about the rock terror.

“First of all, [the order to] silence reporting about these things is coming from the top down. The government doesn’t want the public to hear about these incidents happening.”

The reason for that, she said, is that if the public knew the true extent of Arab terror against Jews in Judea and Samaria, the government would be forced to respond forcefully — something that it has been reluctant to do due to political considerations.

“We are living in a war” in Judea and Samaria, Lash said. “People are wounded every single day. There are stone- and rock-throwing attacks, physical beatings, stabbings…it’s an intifada.”

The mainstream media only reports about stone throwing attacks when “there’s a complete disaster” and a victim is seriously injured or killed, she added.

In the rare instances when Jews attack Arabs in Judea and Samaria, “that’s given tons of attention by the media” she said, while everyday attacks on Jews perpetrated by Arabs are largely ignored.

“They’ve transformed the perpetrators into victims. In the mainstream narrative, the Arabs [who throw rocks] are victims, and the Jews who live here are enemies.”

Lash noted the abundance of weapons in both the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian Authority-controlled communities, warning that the Israeli government would need to respond swiftly or risk a painful civil war.

“The situation can’t go on like this for much longer,” she said.