If you read this story, and only this story, you’d think that the West Bank city of Nablus was specifically chosen by the Israelis to crush, kill, and destroy. Break out the hankies, folks, it’s gonna be a tearjerker.
Dying. Dead. A corpse. Isolated from the world.
That is how Palestinians describe the once thriving city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
Surrounded by sand-coloured rocky mountains, Nablus is also encircled by Israeli army checkpoints and military bases. For Palestinians, leaving means queuing for hours, unless you are a male aged 16 to 35. Then, exit is prohibited without a permit.
Palestinians brand the Israeli restrictions collective punishment.
A centre for trading olives, soap and other goods for thousands of years, Nablus should be the business hub of the West Bank. Instead, many entrepreneurs have left. Other residents say they want to leave. Depression is common.
At night, gunfire echoes from the ancient Old City: Israeli troops on a raid or rival militant factions settling scores.
“This is a story that should be written with tears,” said Hasan Abu Libdeh, head of the Palestinian stock market, which was set up here a decade ago amid optimism about peace.
“Nablus, a magnificent city, is a corpse. It just breaks my heart.”
Say, are they going to get around to telling us why Nablus is ringed by IDF soldiers?
Israel clamped tight restrictions on Nablus, north of Jerusalem, during a Palestinian uprising that erupted six years ago.
Nope.
The army said there were six checkpoints around Nablus and its 200,000 people, noting that curbs were also in place on young men leaving.
Inside Nablus, militants are not hard to find.
Posters of gunmen killed in clashes with Israeli troops line the stone walls.
One shows Fadi Qafeesheh, 33, shot dead by Israeli soldiers on Aug. 31. In the picture, Qafeesheh strikes various poses, holding a pump-action shotgun, an assault rifle and a pistol.
Still nope.
Community leaders said the Israeli restrictions were having a counterproductive effect, encouraging more hardened attitudes toward the Jewish state.
“I meet Israelis all the time. I say you have to take the risk. By suffocating this city you are creating more fundamentalists, more terrorists,” said stock market chief Abu Libdeh, also a former Palestinian government minister.
Nope. Reuters can still find absolutely no reason why the IDF has six checkpoints surrounding Nablus.
I found a few.
- In the course of the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon , the Israeli security forces thwarted suicide bombing attacks and attempts to abduct soldiers and civilians to negotiate the release of Palestinian prisoners. Some of these terrorist attacks were thwarted shortly before their planned execution.
- The thwarted terrorist attacks were planned by the terrorist organizations’ cells in Gaza and the West Bank, the most prominent being the Fatah’s Tanzim cell in Nablus . Some of them (including the Fatah cell in Nablus ) are directed by Hezbollah, which instructed terrorist infrastructures in the West Bank to intensify their activity during the war in Lebanon and perpetrate suicide bombing attacks and abductions so as to open another front against Israel.
- During the war, the Israeli security forces thwarted nine abduction and suicide bombing attacks on the verge of implementation (see details below). Also thwarted or disrupted were over twenty attack plans in various stages of development. Detained within the context of the counter-terrorism activities were 396 terrorist operatives, including 12 potential suicide bombers detained before embarking on their missions. The detainees belong to Fatah’s Tanzim (177), to Hamas (76), to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (62), and to other terrorist organizations.
But wait, there’s more.
On August 9, the Israeli security forces detained a female suicide bomber and her collaborator at the Beit Iba roadblock in the vicinity of Nablus . The two were dispatched by a Fatah Tanzim cell.
[…] The security forces thwarted a suicide bombing attempt in the city of Rehovot , planned by the Hezbollah-directed Fatah Tanzim infrastructure from the Balata refugee camp in Nablus .
[…] Following a specific security alert, a 21-year-old female terrorist from Nablus was detained on the Tel-Aviv promenade. In her interrogation, she admitted that she had been dispatched by Ibrahim Nayba, the leader of the Hezbollah-directed Fatah Tanzim infrastructure in the Balata refugee camp ( Nablus ).
[…] A specific security alert led to the arrest in Hod Hasharon of Rami Abu Hajle, from the village of Azun near Qalqilya. He was supposed to lead a suicide bomber on behalf of the Hezbollah-directed Fatah Tanzim cell in the Balata refugee camp (Nablus), led by Ibrahim Nayba.
[…] On July 19, the Israeli security forces arrested Shaher Hajj, the head of a Fatah Tanzim cell in Ramallah. In his interrogation, he admitted to planning to abduct Israelis on the road between Ramallah and Nablus.
Nablus is also the home of Al-Najah University, the only university in the world that specializes in suicide bombers. And I don’t even have the time to Google the number of suicide bombers originating from Nablus. But there are a few. Actually, there are quite a lot more than a few. That’s why Nablus is surrounded by checkpoints. Because too many of the inhabitants of that “dying” city are trying to kill Israelis.
The city is not dying. It is committing suicide. Stop trying to murder Israelis, and watch the IDF checkpoints go away. It’s as simple as that, though most people refuse to believe it.
It’s the height of hypocracy to want to move freely in a country and conduct commerce with a people whom you believe should not even exist. And, are they saying that if only Israel stopped trying to stop suicide bombers, suicide bombers would be nicer to them?
That kind of thinking makes sense to too many people. I hate to make general characterizations about a group of people, but I believe that the Pals are collectively loopy!
As far as Reuters is concerned, Israel is just interfering in the Palestinian’s Allah given right to kill Jews.
And that’s just rude.
“I meet Israelis all the time. I say you have to take the risk. By suffocating this city you are creating more fundamentalists, more terrorists,â€
Of course the Israelis have taken risk after risk, even before Oslo where, having expelled the PLO, they let it back in. Risk after risk after risk…always greeted with terrorism and more terrorism. The Israelis “suffocate” Nablus and so there’s terrorism. If they didn’t suffocate Nablus…there would be terrorism.