A visit to the city of terrorists
Residents praise 'martyrs' who kill civilians in Qabatiya, where the IDF has been focusing its anti-terrorism activities in the past couple of weeks.
Qabatiya has been the focus of the IDF’s struggle against terrorism for the past two weeks. The murderers of Border Policewoman Hadar Cohen came from this town near Jenin. The four-day closure imposed on the 25,000 inhabitants is considered unusual, while the IDF chief of staff emphasizes that the burden must be eased on the Palestinian population not involved in terror.
"Here we fought every kind of occupation," Mayor Mahmoud Kamal told AFP during a condolence visit in the homes of the terrorists’ families. The mayor listed the Ottoman Empire, the British, and Israeli rule.
One of the cell members who came from the northern West Bank to Jerusalem with improvised explosives, weapons and knives for the attack that killed Hadar Cohen was 19-year-old Ahmad Zakarna. His older sister Nisreen was crying and said he had “ (a girlfriend) he loved, work and family that he cherished, and he abandoned them to fight for the Palestinian people."
Zakarna's mother, surrounded by her remaining 10 children, asked to be called "mother of the shahid (martyr)" and spoke of the “honor” brought by her son. IDF forces have already begun preparing to demolish the houses of the families, but she said that “the houses are not as important as our children. As they destroy, we build."
Last Ramadan, recalled Zakarna’s mother, she and her son wanted to enter Jerusalem to pray at al-Aqsa Mosque. "I went through and he was stopped," she said. Eight months later, Ahmad and his deadly squad managed to infiltrate Jerusalem and murder Hadar Cohen, who, like Ahmad, was 19 years old.
Restrictions on entry to Israel
Three days after it was placed, the IDF began removing the closure over Qabatiya. Last Saturday, the bodies of three men were returned and they were buried in the town, after days of clashes between locals and security forces.
Despite the departure of ten young terrorists from the town to carry out attacks since autumn, the IDF has identified activities and attempts by town officials to prevent the continuation of the phenomenon. Veteran activists in the city initially managed to halt the exit of younger terrorists to carry out attacks after the immense economic damage caused by the closure of Jalameh Crossing near Jenin.
That crossing serves as a major financial artery through which thousands of Israeli Arabs arrive to trade in Jenin, alongside the many Palestinians who go to work in Israel. These activities of Qabatiya’s senior leadership repeated itself with the closure imposed on the town following the Damascus Gate attack.
In between, as the IDF imposed a closure on the town of Sair, near Hebron, the town’s leaders met with their counterparts to learn how they managed to block the village youths from going out and carrying out attacks. This is evidence of the great discrepancy between the generations on the Palestinian street that feeds the current violence.
The fact that a large proportion of terrorists has come out of Qabatiya is surprising because of a geographical reason: The town is located in the heart of a large Palestinian enclave in the northern West Bank, and its residents, like residents of nearby villages, do not see settlers or soldiers every day, in contrast to other areas in the West Bank.
Mohammed Nazzal, a 37-year-old from Qabatiya who holds a work permit, travels to Israel through Jalameh Crossing. Now he is sitting at home. "They do not let us pass, and we do not know what will happen," he says. The nearby Jenin Chamber of Commerce argues that the restrictions imposed since the attack affect hundreds of businessmen, farmers and other workers. "It will not reduce the tension", the Palestinians insist.
Qabatiya’s streets were festooned with signs that were praising the recent "martyrs". "All the neighbors and the whole village sympathize with us," the terrorist’s mother added.
