Students at the Orot Etzion Girls School in Efrat began their second day of school with a lot of excitement and a bang. A bang and a boom actually.

After someone noticed a very suspicious looking object in the in the school’s lower courtyard, police and army services were called in the deal with the “Hefetz Hashud”.

Hundreds of students were evacuated to the park across the street, and the main entrance to the Zayit neighborhood was shut down as the police bomb disposal experts did their job.

Everyone chipped in to help. Efrat’s mayor, Oded Ravivi, was helping direct traffic, Efrat’s General Manager, Yehuda Shreiger, was coordinating with the security forces, while Uzi, an Orot Etzion school employee, played the violin to entertain the girls while they waited.

It took a half hour, and 2 controlled explosions to do it, but the demolitions experts managed to blow up the suspicious object, without anything more than a loud explosion and some even louder screaming from the girls (see the video below).

Oh. And what was the suspicious object that got blown up?

It turns out that a yoga teacher forgot to take one of her pillows after a class yesterday.

But its always better to be safe than sorry.

On Tuesday afternoon, Arabs in Hebron threw stones and shot slingshots at homes in Beit Hadassah and Beit Schneerson.

Arabs have also been throwing stones at cars in Gush Etzion, and at a bus near the Old City’s Damascus Gate.

In the Binyamin region, Arabs have been throwing firebombs at cars on the road.

The fire department is putting out fires around Hadassah Hospital on Har Hatzofim that Arabs started in a mini-riot.

The IDF’s Etzion Brigade honored Yaacov Ehrlich, the security chief of Efrat in Gush Etzion, with the coveted “Ravshatz” (Security Chief) of the Year award.

Ehrlich has been Efrat’s security chief for only one year. He is the third security chief from Efrat to have received the award.

Hatzala of Judea and Samaria reports that Arabs were throwing stones at cars travelling along the road between Jerusalem and Gush Etzion. The rock throwing occurred near the El Hadr (Beitar) Junction on Highway 60.

No injuries were reported.

The Palestinian Authority has proved its death wish again by it fierce reaction to IDF approval of a grandiose plan, years away for reality, that would provide trains service to Arab cities in Judea and Samaria and propel economic growth but with the “price tag” of also being beneficial to Jews.

“This [plan] shows not only Israel’s short-term illegal activities in terms of settlement expansion, but its long term planning and execution of colonial projects that aim at nothing less than ending the two-state solution,” PA spokesman Husam Zomlot said.

If there is one area in which  chairman Mahmoud Abbas excels it is cutting off his own nose to spite his face, or more accurately the face of nearly more than 1.5 million Arabs living in Judea and Samaria.

Several years ago, Israel considered building its “Kvish 6” (Highway 6) north-south superhighway toll road east of the current route so that it would bring Arabs and Jews in Judea and Samaria closer to metropolitan Tel Aviv. It also would have cemented an Israeli presence in the region.

The highway, which now extends a short distance from Haifa all the way to the suburbs of Be’er  Sheva, has been a boon to industry and housing, enabling Israelis to cut driving times in half. New industry has brought thousands of jobs to areas that were formerly undeveloped.

Ramallah, Jenin, Shechem, and Hevron could have enjoyed the benefits, but the Israeli government was scared that the Palestinian Authority might eventually rake in all the cards and create a Judenrein country in Judea and Samaria. Investors, many of whom were more interested in capitalism than Zionism, encouraged the current route that stays out of Judea and Samaria.

When the city of Jerusalem built its light rail system to include northern Jerusalem, which the Palestinian Authority claims will be part of its state one day, chairman Mahmoud Abbas went bonkers because it challenged PA soverisgnty over the capital.

The light rail system allows Arabs, as well as Jews, to ride into the city and work and shop without the miserable traffic jams in the capital, where homes and offices crowds over two lane roads that leave little room for widening.

Now comes the Transportation Ministry’s railroad plan, announced earlier this year and given the nod by the military.

It would include more approximately 300 miles of track along 11 rail lines, running from Hevron, approximately 15 miles south of Jerusalem, linking the Jordan Valley to the east and running northward to include Bethlehem, Ramallah, Jenin and Shechem.

Just think of the boon for Arab workers and industries, which would be able to receive raw materials near their factories and ship finished product by rail to the ports of Haifa and Ashdod.

The long-term for the railway system is for it to run from Ramallah to the Allenby Bridge, on the border with Jordan, and to connect rail lines to Gaza and Arab countries.

Just think how that could unify Ramallah and Gaza by bringing them together.

But the Palestinian Authority  does not think like that.

They say, “Just think of what those trains would do for the Jews. It would reach the illegal colonial settlement of Maaleh Adumim [a city of approximately 40,000 east of Jerusalem]. It would benefit those settlers in Gush Edition, some of whom are sitting on property that was occupied  before the reestablishment of Israel by  – Jews. Oh well, let’s forget about that little fact.

“Anything that helps a Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria is immoral. It defeats the two-state solution.” That refers to the two state, living side by side in peace and harmony, where Arabs lives in Israel and do not let Jews live in Judea and Samaria.

The Palestinian Authority has not learned its lesson from being left out of Highway 6. Earlier this week, Israel said that a proposed Highway 9 will link Hadera, located southwest of Haifa and northeast of Tel Aviv, with communities to the east.

The official WAFA news agency stated, “The establishment of ‘Road 9’ will destroy the two-state solution and prevent the establishment of a viable and contiguous Palestinian state. The planned ‘Road 9’ will link the coastal Israeli city of Hadera with illegal settlements in Jenin and the Jordan Valley.”

Arabs threw 5 firebombs at IDF soldiers near the northern entrance of Efrat in Gush Etzion.

No other details are available at this point in time.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is at it again, forecasting for the 16th time this year that Israel and the Palestinian Authority will resume direct talks, according to two PA officials who conditioned their “stop the press” tip on the basis of anonymity.

Direct negotiations, as called for in the Oslo Accords,  were suspended nearly three years ago except for a one time, two-hour stage show produced and directed by President Barack Obama.

This time around, the PA officials said, will secure from Israel a building freeze in all areas sought by the Palestinian Authority except for the major blocs of Jewish population, such as Maaleh Adumim and Gush Etzion.

It is difficult to imagine how chairman Mahmoud Abbas could stay alive and agree to back down from his pre-defined borders that the United Nations General Assembly already has accepted in a non-binding resolution. A thorough denial of the latest rumor can be expected momentarily from Abbas’ office, and it could be that his rivals leaked the big news.

The talks are supposed to resume in six to nine months, which would be halfway through the latest of dozens of “windows of opportunity” that are about to close on the chances for peace.

If one more window of opportunity opens, everyone will catch pneumonia.

Overnight, two firebombs were thrown at Israeli cars on road 60, south of the tunnel checkpoint, near the Beit Illit junction in Gush Etzion.

One of the drivers reported that he saw a terrorist about to throw the firebomb at them, so he hit the gas to get away. As a result, the firebomb landed just behind his car.

The army began searching the area for the attacker. During the search, a car was stopped and in it they found two sniper rifles, a homemade silencer, telescopic sites, bullets and magazine cartridges, according to a report by the Tazpit News Agency. Three Arabs were arrested.

There were other stone throwing and firebomb attacks in Judea and Samaria overnight.