Cleared for publication: Security forces have determined that the hit and run near El Aroub in Gush Etzion was a terror attack and not a traffic accident.

On Nov. 5, 2014 an Arab-driven van mowed down 3 IDF soldiers on the side of the road (see video footage below) in Gush Etzion. A manhunt ensued, but the next day, after numerous family members of the driver were arrested, the driver turned himself in claiming it was a traffic accident.

The IDF initially went along with the claim that it was an accident, leading the parents of one of the soldiers to claim the IDF was covering up that it was a terror attack.

According to Channel 2, the investigation continued and new evidence emerged proving conclusively to the investigators that the hit and run was not an accident. The terrorist subsequently admitted he hit the soldiers on purpose and reenacted the event for investigators.

Dalia Lemkos (26) of Tekoa HY”D has been identified as the murder victim in the Alon Shvut terror attack today.

The terrorist first tried to run over his victims with his car at an Alon Shvut bus stop, but when that failed, he got out of his car and stabbed Lemkos in the neck. She was seriously wounded and was pronounced dead at the scene.

This wasn’t Lemkos’s first time in a terror attack.

On February 26, 2006, Dalia Lemkos was stabbed by terrorists in Gush Etzion. In an eerily similar attack, she had been waiting at a hitchhiking station when an Arab terrorist attacked the hitchhikers, stabbing two of them including Lemkos. Her injuries in the 2006 attack were not life-threatening.

The Lemkos family made Aliyah from South Africa, and lived in Tekoa for the past 15 years. Dalia Lemkos was a volunteered at Yad Sarah, and was an MDA ambulance driver.

Her funeral is tentatively scheduled for Monday morning at 10 AM in Tekoa.

5:43 PM Update on injured: one light to moderate condition with stomach wounds and the other with light wounds.

Police update that the victim is a 25 year old woman, not 17 or 14.

5:22 PM The murdered girl is 17 years old. The terrorist is apparently still alive, but in critical condition. It appears the terrorist first tried to run people over and failed, so he then got out and began stabbing.

5:14 PM A 14 year old girl was killed by a terrorist in Alon Shvut (Gush Etzion) on Monday. The terrorist drove up to the hitchhiking post near the entrance to Alon Shvut, got out, and stabbed the girl. A man tried to stop him, and the terrorist stabbed the 50 year old man in the stomach.

An IDF soldier shot the terrorist. It is not clear if the terrorist is dead yet.

5:05 PM A 14 year old girl was seriously injured after an Arab terrorist stabbed her in the neck at the entrance to Alon Shvut. A second man was moderately injured with a knife wound to the stomach. A third person in his 50′s was lightly injured.

An IDF soldier shot the terrorist. It is not clear if the terrorist is dead yet.

4:51 PM Three people injured, one seriously, and two moderately in Alon Shvut, in a stabbing terror attack at the Alon Shvut junction in Gush Etzion. Details are still unclear.

The terrorist has been reportedly killed by the army.

Update to follow.

The terrorist in the Alon Shvut terror attack today, was released in one of the previous prisoner deals, accordng to Ehud Ya’ari (Channel 2).

He has been identified as Maher Hamdi Hashalamun (30), and is an Islamic Jihad terrorist from Hebron, as per the Shabak

He was in jail for 5 years for throwing a firebomb on an IDF jeep.

I’ve been living in Israel, in Gush Etzion, in Efrat, since the end of August. I’m here because one daughter (YD) is studying in a seminary nearby (much more on that, later), and the other (OD) made Aliyah and is going into the IDF in December.

This is our chance to try a pilot project: can this particular family of upper middle class Jewish American Zionists make it in Israel? Do we have more to contribute being here, or is it important for stalwart Israel supporters to remain in the U.S., constantly correcting the myths created by the mainstream media about Israel, the shtachim, the plight of the Arabs, and all the rest.

And does Israel really need more lawyers? Or English-writing journalists? We’ll see. But for now, here I am.

*************

Arriving at Ben Gurion. Nov. 5, 2014.

My mother came to visit for two weeks. She arrived at Ben Gurion a few days ago. Younger Daughter (YD) and I picked her up. Yes, here I am, driving in Israel. At this point, two months in, I know how to get to the airport without looking at directions. That’s exciting.

The Judean Hills

This morning I showed my mother around the neighborhood. She thinks it is GORGEOUS. As she raved on and on (“you know, everything is flat in Florida, we have none of these gorgeous hills”), I said to her:

ME: You know, mom, this is the “West Bank.”

MOM: It’s so gorgeous…what? What are you talking about?

ME: Here. This house, this neighborhood, this whole area is what the New York Times and the rest of the planet calls the “West Bank.”

MOM: … (looks around with her eyes squinched up)…no. You mean, this is what they say should be given back?

ME: yes, that’s what ‘they’ say. And they’re also wrong about saying “given back,” as if it was intended to go to people who had control over it before.

We take a brief detour through the history of  the last few hundreds years of control of this area, beginning with the Ottoman Empire and then the British Mandate, and then the slicing up of what was promised for the Jewish State so that the different Arab families could be rewarded with their own countries, and then the refusal to accept the final Arab state if it also meant there would be a Jewish state.

And then back to this being the “West Bank.”

MOM: But how can this be the “West Bank?”

ME: You mean, because the people and the houses and the stores look just like they do everywhere else, including in Florida (where mom lives)? Mom, this is what they call a “settlement.” We’re all “settlers” here.

MOM: That’s ridiculous.

ME: It’s because the media only shows pictures of people who look crazed or violent or both. And the descriptions they connect with what they call “settlers” conjure up images of people foaming at the mouth and walking around with machetes for chopping down Arabs’ olive trees.

MOM: But this (she points around the neighborhood) isn’t what anyone thinks of when they think of the West Bank. When I hear those words, I think of makeshift ramshackle houses and people who…well, people who look nothing like the people around here. Really, this looks like the communities in Florida.

ME: Well, you should start telling all your friends. All those Jews who are proudly Jewish, but who think that the “settlements” are a problem.

Yesterday’s hit and run incident that critically injured one IDF soldier and moderately wounded two others is looking more likely to have been an accident, security sources indicate.

A senior Israeli official said Thursday the incident first appeared to have been a second vehicular terror attack near the Palestinian Authority Arab town of El Aroub, a community crowded up along Highway 60. But investigators are now exploring the possibility that the suspects involved in the incident did not intend to hit their victims.

This morning (Thursday, Nov. 6) 23-year-old Hamam Jamal Badui al-Masalmeh, the driver of the van, turned himself in to the authorities, security officials said. IDF troops visited the family overnight and said they were searching for their son.

A number of people were arrested overnight, by security personnel including Masalmeh’s family members: Jamal Badui Masalmeh, Valid al-Masalma and Ismail Sabhi al-Shalash Masalmeh.

The family told the IDF that the incident was an accident, not an attack. Masalmeh’s uncle Omar told the AFP news agency that his nephew had lost control of the large commercial van that he was driving.

Members of the Combat Engineering Corps 603rd Battalion in Bet Awa, the Southern Hebron Hills region also arrested Masalmeh’s father last night at his home in Bet Awa, soon after the incident, the SAFA news agency reported. There remains a question as to whether he was an accessory to incident.

The vehicle struck the three IDF soldiers as they stood guard near an IDF “pillbox” outpost on Highway 60. The van was later found abandoned in El Aroub with damage to its hood.

The Shabak (General Security Services) reports that an Arab from the Hebron area has been arrested in connection with the Gush Etzion vehicular terror attack. Another Arab turned himself in this morning in connection to the attack. The IDF made a number of arrests this morning of possible suspects.

The identity of the man who turned himself in is Hammam Jamal Badui al-Masalma (23) fromn Beit Awa.

Masalma turned himself in to the Etzion District Coordinating Office (DCO) after a number of his family members, including his father, were arrested. He is suspected to have been the driver or an accomplice in the terror attack.

He has been sent to interrogation.

He claims it was an accident, and not a terror attack.