A mob of dozens of Palestinian Authority rock-throwers injured five Jews on the road from Tekoa, in eastern Gush Etzion, to Jerusalem Tuesday morning. At least one of the victims was evacuated by ambulance, and his condition was described as good.

The mob, which included women and children, smashed windshields with large rocks in an effort to cause fatal accidents. Six cars sustained damage.

One driver said he lost control of his vehicle but managed to keep from crashing and from hitting the attackers.

Israeli soldiers arrived at the scene and dispersed the attackers.

A mezuzah placed on an abandoned IDF building in the Shdema area of eastern Gush Etzion served as a victory sign for the Women in Green, who have struggled for five years to keep Arabs from occupying it and separating Jewish contiguity in the future.

The building now will serve as a cultural center, after having been abandoned in 2006 and later virtually destroyed and looted by Palestinian Authority Arabs.

Two years later, when Ehud Barak was Defense Minister, the IDF planned to give the land to the Palestinian Authority even though it is “Area C,” which under the Oslo Accords includes Jewish and Arab communities and villages that are supposed to be under complete Israeli sovereignty.

The nationalist Women in Green organized what appeared to be hopeless protests to keep the land from falling into Arab hands. They pressured the army to return to the Shedma base in 2010, and after renovations, a mezuzah was affixed to the doorpost of the building on Friday in the presence of the Deputy Minister of Religious Services Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan.

“Shdema will be a flourishing community. There will be no other sovereignty in Eretz Israel other than that of the State of Israel,” he said.

Yehudit Katsover, who along with and Nadia Matar leads the Women in Green, read a congratulatory letter by Speaker of the Knesset Yuli Edelstein, who wrote, “The Gush Etzion area has an abundant history of special women who ‘built the House of Israel.’ On one side, standing on the main road, is the tomb of the Matriarch Rachel, who weeps and ‘refuses to be comforted for her children, who are gone.’

“And on the other side stands Shdema, which connects Jerusalem and Tekoa, the place of the woman of Tekoa who acts on behalf of the unity of the people, ‘that the one who is banished be not an outcast from him.’ Israel is redeemed by the merit of righteous women, and by the merit of tenacious and fighting women, who are persistent and experienced in struggles… Shdema will yet develop and become an important and central settlement point.”

Gush Etzion Regional Council head Davidi Perl also vowed that Shdema “will be a permanent settlement.”

The Women in Green and their supporters have struggled against leftists, both Israelis and foreigners, who have encouraged Arabs to try to take over the land. The women frequently planted trees, even after Arabs uprooted them.

Attorney Herzl Yehezkel, who during his term in office as head of the Homat Shmuel (Har Homah) Community Administration worked with the women, said the effort to prevent the transfer of Shedma to Arabs “proves that determination is successful, and there is no reason not to settle everywhere.”

There has been an escalation of Arab attacks all week long, but since early Friday afternoon, Arabs have been violently rioting throughout Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem following Arab calls for violent demonstrations.

Dozens of attacks have been reported today, here is a partial roundup of some of the attacks:

Local Mount of Olive residents were told to bring in their Sukkahs overnight, after they received advance warning that Arabs were planning to burn down their Sukkahs on Friday with firebombs.

Hundred of Arabs were stoning Jews with cinder-blocks and stones on the road leading to the Mount of Olives neighborhoods.

Undercover police officers managed to identify and apprehend the ringleaders of the riot, and dispersed the remaining Arab hooligans.

From Tazpit News Agency:

Approximately 100 Arabs are rioting near Kever Rachel.

Two pipe bombs were thrown near Kever Rachel.

Near Sha’ar Shechem (Damascus Gate) in Jerusalem, a policeman was lightly injured by Arab rock throwers.

A soldier was injured near Beit Omar from stone throwing. His teeth were broken when a stone hit him in the face.

Near Assawiyah in Jerusalem, Arabs are throwing stones and burning tires.

Arab are throwing stones at Beit Hadassah in Hebron.

Arabs are burning an agricultural field near Hebron.

Arabs are rioting near Shechem.

Arabs threw stones at cars near Efrat in Gush Etzion.

A firebomb was thrown at IDF troops near Beit Omar.

On road 60, between Gush Etzion and Hebron, Arabs are throwing stones at cars and policemen.

Arabs lit up a tire between Beit Fa’jar and Migdal Oz in Gush Etzion.

Violent riots have been reported near Ne’elin. One person was injured.

Sukkot hike raises money for Camp Koby.

More than 60 people took part in a special one day Kilometers for Koby Sukkot hike along the Israel Trail and the Burma Road this week to help raise funds for Camp Koby, established in memory of terror teenage victim Koby Mandell.

He and a friend were killed nearly 13 years ago in a terrorist attack while hiking near their home in Tekoa, east of Efrat in Gush Etzion. The tragedy spurred his parents, Rabbi Seth and Sherri Mandell, to create The Koby Mandell Foundation to benefit the families of others who have lost loved ones to terror and other tragic circumstances. The   hike began at Neve Shalom and ended in Park Eshtaol and included both Israelis and American tourists.

Palestinian Authority-Israeli “peace talks” might be short-lived following the unveiling on Tuesday of a new Gush Etzion-Dead Sea highway Tuesday that would destroy Palestinian Authority ambitions to include all of the Jordan Valley and the Judean Desert in its planned future state.

While foreign and Israeli media reported that Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas  has made it clear there is no room for compromise on PA territorial demands in the area, two Cabinet ministers senior Knesset Member Avigdor Liberman toured the proposed route of the new highway, with work slated to begin in only four months.

News of the new west-east road, which would revolutionize travel and the tourist industry, has barely been reported, but once the Palestinian Authority gets a hold of it, it undoubtedly will demand that there is no sense in talking unless Israel calls off the bulldozers and asphalt trucks.

“Israel will not be present between us and Jordan,” Abbas said in Jericho  this week. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has consistently said that Israel will retain a presence in the Jordan Valley as a security measure.

Abbas on Sunday rejected an Israeli military presence, adding that he might consider an international force to back up PA security forces.

The planned $10 million highway makes mincemeat out of Abbas’ grand vision and could set off the fuse that would explode the PA-Israeli discussions that Palestinian Authority negotiators insist are going nowhere.

The route for the new road was unveiled during a tour of the area on Tuesday by Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz, a strong Likud nationalist, Agriculture Minister Yair Shamir of Yisrael Beiteinu , and Liberman, chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee and leader of the Yisrael Beiteinu faction in the Likud party.

The highway would cut through “Area C,” determined by the Oslo Accords to be under Israeli control, and would carve through some of Israel’s most awesome natural areas.

Planners  claimed that the route was approved by environmental experts,  but any work that would scar the Judean Desert cliffs, parts of which are virgin area occupied only by wildlife, would meet a storm of protests from environmentalists.

The political story from the Palestinian Authority will be just as fierce, but comments by Israeli  officials touring the route Tuesday were full of enthusiasm and praise.

“I have been dreaming of this road for 20 years,” said Motti Dahaman, chairman of the Megillot Regional Council in the Dead Sea area north of Ein Gedi.

“This road is part of a vision or tourism and will connect Gush Etzion to the Dead Sea and Megillot with Jerusalem,”  He said. “The highway will make it easier form tourists form Bethlehem to come to the Dead Sea.” The highway if it can bridge the political divide, will cut travel time from Gush Etzion to the Dead Sea to only 27 minutes. Today, the only way to reach the Dead Sea, except by four-wheel vehicles, is via Jerusalem to the north or  Arad to the south, with travel time of nearly 90 minutes.

Gush Etzion Regional Council chairman Davidi Perl called the highway an “historic event” and added, “Today there are only two roads to the Dead Sea. The significance of this new highway is that it will bring the center of the country to the Dead Sea and encourage tourism there and in Gush Etzion and the Judean Desert.

The road would include the current Beit Shemesh-Gush Etzion route, which would be widened into a super highway, and it then would carve out a new path, over dirt roads, east of Efrat and then south east, bypassing virtually impassable cliffs.

Arabs through stones and a firebomb at cars driving on road 60, near the northern entrance to Efrat.

Earlier in the afternoon, Arabs through massive amounts of stones at cars at the El Hadr/Beitar junction.

No injuries were reported in either attack

Palestinian Authority Arab terrorists returned to one of their favorite spots south of Jerusalem Wednesday and attack passing Jewish motorists, injuring one girl.

Near Hevron, the IDF arrested four Arabs were arrested, including those who had prepared firebombs to hurl at vehicles on Highway 60 at Beit Umar, located between Gush Etzion and Kiryat Arab-Hevron.

It’s estimated that 13,000 Jews visited Ma’arat HaMachpelah (the Tomb of the Patriachs) today for tours and the evening Selichot prayers ahead of Yom Kippur.

Among those that will be at this evening’s Selichot prayers are the Chief Rabbis of Israel, city rabbis, MKs and government ministers.

There have been reports of Arabs stoning buses transporting Jews to and from Hebron.