The Last Exile

In my news reader I carry the feeds of the major English Israeli dailies. Every week there are multiple daily reports of stonings and/or Molotov cocktails being thrown at Israeli civilians/vehicles. In fact, its become such a common place type of report that I rarely pay attention to the details anymore. I usually just scroll quickly pass, and yet, every stoning is an act of terrorism deliberately launched against Israeli civilians. It occurred to me that most of my readers do not grasp just how common place this kind of attack is. I decided I would list the attacks posted by Ynet News from just the last six days. All reports are filed by Efrat Weiss at Ynet News.

November 17, 2009

18:35 pm
Palestinians hurled stones at an Israeli bus driving southwest of Bethlehem. No injuries were reported, however damage was caused to the vehicle.

15:13 pm
Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli vehicles near Bethlehem and in the Qalandiya area, north of Jerusalem. No injuries were reported, however damage was caused to the vehicles.

11:38 am
Palestinians hurled stones at an Israeli car driving northwest of Ramallah. No injuries were reported, however damage was caused to the vehicle.

November 16th

18:55 pm
Palestinians threw stones at Israeli vehicles southwest of Bethlehem. No injuries were reported, but a bus and another vehicle sustained damage.

13:20 pm
Palestinians hurled stones at an Israeli vehicle driving south of Nablus. No injuries were reported, however damage was caused to the vehicle.

November 15th

22:10 pm
Palestinians threw stones at an Israeli bus travelling southwest of Bethlehem in the West Bank. There were no reports of injury, but the vehicle was damaged

November 14th

17:54 pm
Palestinians hurled stones at an Israeli vehicle traveling east of the West Bank city of Qalqilya. No injuries were reported, however the vehicle sustained damages.

November 12th

21:12 pm
Palestinians threw stones at an Israeli bus on the road near Beit Omer, southwest of Bethlehem. There were no reports of injures, but damage was caused to the bus.

21:01 pm
An Israeli citizen was lightly injured from stones thrown at the Shufat checkpoint in northern Jerusalem. The woman received medical treatment at the scene and there was no need to evacuate her to hospital.

20:08 pm
Palestinians hurled stones at an Israeli vehicle traveling south of Nablus. There were no reports of injuries, but the cars sustained damage.

18:29pm
Palestinians hurled stones at an Israeli vehicle driving northeast of Ramallah. No injuries were reported, however damage was caused to the vehicle.

10:48 am
Palestinians hurled stones at an Israeli vehicle travelling northeast of the West Bank city of Ramallah. There were no reports of injuries, but the car sustained damage. The security forces are searching the area.

November 11th

18:41 pm
Palestinians hurled stones at Israeli vehicles south-west of Nablus. No injuries were reported, however damage was caused to one of the vehicles.

13:10 pm
Palestinians hurled a Molotov cocktail at an Israeli vehicle traveling east of Qalqilya. No injuries or damage were reported.

9:24 am
Palestinians hurled stones at an Israeli car traveling near the West Bank village of Beit Omar, southwest of Bethlehem. Earlier, stones were hurled in the nearby al-Arroub area. There were no injuries in both incidents, but the vehicles sustained damage.

8:15 am
Palestinians hurled stones at an Israeli car traveling near the West Bank settlement of Tekoa, not far from Bethlehem. There were no reports of injuries, but the car sustained damage.

This shouldn’t be taken as a comprehensive list of all the stoning attacks which occurred in the past six days. I suspect many Israelis do not necessary bother reporting a stoning incident unless the attack results in physical injury or damage to a vehicle. Certainly, that appears to be criteria Ynet News uses in reporting the incidents.

The overall miracle is that there are relatively few life threatening injuries which have resulted from these common type of attacks but make no mistake – the lack in injuries, or even fatalities, is not from a lack of commitment or intent on the part of Palestinians ‘militants’ who launch these attacks against Israeli civilians.