Home Frontline Defense Frontline Defense: November 21, 2017

Frontline Defense: November 21, 2017

SOURCE
An Iron Dome battery deployed in central Israel on November 14, 2017. (Photo: AFP)

Israel and the West Bank

A Palestinian man wounded two Israelis during a series of attacks near Gush Etzion on November 17. According to a news report, the assailant used his vehicle and a knife to injure his victims before being shot.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin declined to pardon Elor Azaria, an Israel Defense Forces soldier sentenced to 18-months in prison for killing an incapacitated Palestinian terrorist last year.   

The IDF deployed an unspecified number of Iron Dome anti-missile batteries to central Israel in response to a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) threat to retaliate for the killing 10 of its members in a tunnel demolished last month.  

During a press conference in Beirut, Hamas officials accused Israel of killing Mohammed al-Zoari last year. Zoari, a leader in Hamas’s program to develop unmanned drones, was shot dead in Tunisia. The Israeli foreign ministry declined to comment on the killing.

Gaza

Egyptian authorities opened the Rafah border crossing with Gaza for three days on November 18. The Palestinian Authority, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas and which administers the West Bank, now controls security on the Palestinian portion of the checkpoint under a reconciliation agreement with Hamas, which rules the enclave.

Syria and the Golan Heights

The Israeli government released satellite photos showing recent building activity at al-Kiswah that suggested an expansion of Iranian forces. The complex is about 30 miles from the Israeli border.

The Israeli military fired two shells as “warning shots” in response to Syrian military action near the border over the weekend of November 18 and 19.

The IDF shot down a suspected Syrian government drone near the Golan Heights using a Patriot missile on November 11.

Sinai Peninsula

An Israeli soldier was injured by gunfire emanating from Sinai on November 20 and taken to Soroka Hospital in Be’er Sheva. News reports suggest that the shooting was not directed at Israeli troops but was spillover from fighting between the Egyptian army and Islamic State-linked jihadists.

The Egyptian military killed three jihadists and arrested another 74 people in a series of raids against insurgents in Sinai, according to a government statement released November 16.