(Ynet News) Yoav Zitun - Col. Roman Gofman, commander of the IDF's Gush Etzion Brigade, has succeeded in stopping tens of attacks at the Gush Etzion junction, as well as offering "carrots" to the Palestinians to lighten the atmosphere. Gofman has held many candid talks in recent weeks with village leaders and he acceded to a request of the head of the Al-Arroub refugee camp to open the rear entrances to the village to lower the number of rock throwing incidents on Route 60, where Israeli cars travel. In nearby Beit Ummar, another major stone throwing site, Gofman is helping build a soccer field for village youth. After a week-long siege on Beit Fajar because two of its residents carried out attacks near Ariel, local Palestinian leaders gathered their youth and called on them to stop the violence. Similar gatherings have taken place in Sair and Qabatiya. "The Palestinian security services are also doing much more to stop the terror wave," a senior security official admitted. They are searching the bags of students to find knives and are succeeding in stopping lone wolf terrorists. The IDF has also created new methods to fight against inciters. Just as the IDF arrests individuals calling for unrest or the murder of Jews on the radio, it now takes similar action when it comes to incitement on the internet, after collecting inciting videos, pictures, and posts uploaded to Facebook. "What causes attacks today is incitement on Facebook - not mosque leaflets. We arrested a Facebook inciter from Halhoul who has thousands of followers. Following such arrests, we feel a drop in the number of attacks from the same village," an IDF officer said.
2016-04-12 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive