Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security assessment in Jerusalem prior to leaving for New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly, and ahead of the Jewish holy days in the Hebrew month of Tishrei.

Attending the meeting were Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, Israel Policy Deputy Inspector General Zohar Dvir, Jerusalem District Police Commander Yoram Halevy, the deputy Director of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency), an IDF representative and personnel from the National Security Council.

The prime minister ordered police to increase forces particularly in the Old City of Jerusalem and around the Temple Mount, underscoring that “determined action be taken against any attempt to violate order there,” according to his media adviser.

Netanyahu also requested that Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein take action to “continue to prevent parliamentarians and ministers from going up to the Temple Mount during this sensitive period,” his spokesperson said in a statement.

In addition, the prime minister “directed that activity be increased against Palestinian incitement on social networks, including expanded action vis-à-vis Facebook and other platforms, with the goal of removing inflammatory content. He also instructed that a response team be established to refute disinformation about Israeli policy on the Temple Mount.”

In addition, Netanyahu received an update on IDF operations and reinforcements along the roads and in the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria.

Barely a few hours prior to the meeting, a terrorist from the Palestinian Authority stabbed and seriously wounded an IDF reservist at a guard post in the Judean city of Efrat, only eight minutes south of Jerusalem. The terrorist had infiltrated the community late Saturday night, and dozens of IDF soldiers, reservists and local security response personnel had spent the entire night searching the city and surrounding fields to track him down.

The attack came on the heels of a series of terrorist stabbings of IDF soldiers and other attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria, at least three of which took place in Hebron. In response, the IDF beefed up its forces in the holy city next to Kiryat Arba, but other Jewish communities are still vulnerable.

On Friday afternoon barely an hour before the start of the Sabbath, an Arab couple from the nearby town of Bani Naim carried out a vehicle ramming attack at the Elias Junction entrance to Kiryat Arba on Highway 60, next to the Paz gas station, at the bus stop and hitchhiking post. IDF soldiers stationed at the site shot and killed the male terrorist and wounded the female attacker; but three Israeli teenagers were injured and suffered major trauma as well. All three were treated for their relatively minor physical wounds and the major shock they endured.

Within hours, the IDF surrounded and sealed off Bani Naim, which also was home to the teenage terrorist who climbed in the window of the Kiryat Arba home of 13-year-old Hallel Ariel, z’l, at the start of this summer and stabbed her to death while she slept in her bed.

It’s not known how long the closure will last. But Arab villages have been sealed off before, and when the curfew is lifted, terrorists are free to leave and kill Israelis again, inspired and financially remunerated for their efforts by the government of the Palestinian Authority.

The prime minister is clearly hoping that beefed up police at the Temple Mount and in the Old City will contain, if not entirely eliminate Arab terror attacks while he is meeting with President Barack Obama in New York, and addressing the United Nations General Assembly: a gathering that for the most part could care less these days whether Israelis live or die.

It’s Netanyahu’s unenviable job to remind them of why they should care, if only for their own survival — and Israel’s — and the last thing he wants or needs is trouble at home by Knesset members who take the opportunity while he is away to create “a distraction.”

An intelligence alert in Jenin led to an arrest by Palestinian Authority forces of a young Arab who has been on Israel’s “wanted list” for the past six months.

The suspect is wanted in connection with involvement with plans to carry out a terrorist attack in Israel, according to HotNews.

Late Saturday night, the suspect was caught “red handed” and arrested with his weapon while traveling in a vehicle, sources in the Palestinian Authority reported.

A group of 18 Arabs from the Palestinian Authority without Israeli entry permits were caught Saturday by Israel Police.

Police signaled towards a van in which they were riding on Route 5 in the Sharon Plains on Saturday, directing the driver to pull over.

The driver, however, instead tried to outrun the Israeli police vehicle, which gave chase – but instead came up against a checkpoint which was set up to block the runaways further down the road.

Once forced to stop, the group exited the vehicle and began racing in all directions, but eventually were caught and arrested.

All of the illegals were taken into custody and held for questioning.

IDF forces have surrounded and sealed off the Palestinian Authority village of Bani Naim, located about five minutes south of Kiryat Arba in the wake of a terror attack committed by two of its residents. Only “humanitarian” cases are allowed to leave.

The move comes as part of the decision by the IDF to beef up its presence in the Hebron area after an escalation in terror attacks within 48 hours, three out of five of which took place in the city.

One of the attacks involved a vicious stabbing of an IDF soldier Saturday morning in Hebron.

תיעוד הפיגוע שהתרחש הבוקר בחברון • @OrHeller >> https://t.co/YU8LHhS8Xt pic.twitter.com/Z4LCXdLL03— חדשות 10 (@news10) September 17, 2016

The IDF deployed the Shimshon Battalion and the Kefir Brigade in Hebron. Brigadier-General Lior Carmeli, Commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, toured the locations of the terror attacks that took place in the area.

Bani Naim is the same village that was home to the terrorist who murdered 13-year-old Hallel Ariel, stabbing her to death in her bed after climbing in her bedroom window the morning after her school year ended.

Two terrorists carried out a vehicle ramming attack at Elias Junction entrance to Kiryat Arba just prior to the start of the Sabbath a few minutes before sundown on Friday.

IDF troops guarding the area shot the terrorists. The male terrorist was killed, the female terrorist was wounded and taken to the hospital. Three Israeli teenagers suffered minor physical injuries and major trauma; they had to be treated for both as a result of the attack.

The Elias junction is a hitchhiking post in Judea next to a Paz gas station on Highway 60.

Israeli UN envoy Danny Danon categorically rejected an address by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in which he expressed “outrage” over a video showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussing the issue of Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria.

In his statement, issued Thursday, Danon slammed Ban’s remarks, calling them a “distorted vision of the situation in Israel.”

“The failure of the peace process begins and ends with Palestinian [Authority] incitement to terror and Mahmoud Abbas’ refusal to meet Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu,” Danon said.

“Instead of directly condemning Hamas and the building of terror tunnels…the Secretary-General chooses to regularly censure Israel,” he added.

The outgoing UN leader expressed outrage over a video in which the prime minster commented that insisting on ensuring territories are without Jews, constitutes “ethnic cleansing” on the part of the Palestinian Authority. Those who support the PA in this viewpoint likewise support such “ethnic cleansing,” he pointed out, noting that the same definition applies in other places around the world too.

For some reason, however, the prime minister’s logic infuriated Ban, and in an address to the UN Security Council on the “Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question,” he went on and on how the “leaders on both sides have failed to take the difficult steps needed for peace.”

Only, somehow, it has always been the Israeli leader who seems to be the one with more despicable activities, in more grim detail, and more”oppressive” and “outrageous.”

“I am disturbed by a recent statement by Israel’s Prime Minister portraying those who oppose settlement expansion as supporters of ethnic cleansing,” the UN leader said. “This is unacceptable and outrageous.

“Let me be absolutely clear: settlements are illegal under international law. The occupation, stifling and oppressive, must end.

“The international community, including the Security Council and the Middle East Quartet, universally view the expansion of settlements as an obstacle to peace.”

But he calls the “glorification of terror” simply “disgraceful” and just comments that “the Palestinian leadership must put an end to it.”

Oh, you mean it’s not illegal under the internationally-recognized Oslo Accords that gave birth to the Palestinian Authority that is now claiming statehood under the UN? It’s not incitement to violence and more terrorism? It’s not an obstacle to peace, like building homes in areas that would pose a clear security risk to Israel, were they to be left open to occupation by enemy forces – the same territory that was once occupied by Jordan?

Likewise, Ban noted the Palestinian Authority’s High Court decided last week to suspend preparations for the upcoming local elections, but again ducked the real reasons behind it.

He warned that if the pattern does not changed, the trajectory is heading towards “a one-state reality and urged all parties in the Palestinian Authority to find a way to create a unity government, and then to find a way to work together with Israel to create a new Arab state, in peace.

This, after half a century of fratricide, anti-Semitic incitement, hatred and terrorism. War.

It is said that when the Messiah comes, there will be peace on earth…

Stoning attacks against Israeli drivers are continuing on roads the Palestinian Authority government tries to claim for its hoped-for Arab state.

On Thursday evening, Arab terrorists attacked an Israeli bus as it traveled through the Jordan Valley.

The bus came under a hail of rocks, but none of the passengers were physically injured, and no damage to the vehicle was reported, according to Hatzoloh of Judea and Samaria.

The IDF is warning its soldiers – and not for the first time – not to rely on GPS apps when driving from one location to another.

Many places in Israel and the Palestinian Authority have the same, or similar names, military officials note.

Soldiers were also reminded to keep their weapons with them, especially after nightfall.

The warning comes after two female paratroop soldiers were headed to their base this week and took a wrong turn due to erroneous directions on a GPS app.

They ended up in the Palestinian Authority-controlled city of Tulkarem, a few miles east of Netanya – and barely made it out alive.

Both women were injured in the stoning attack that followed, and had to be rescued by local police and defense ministry officials.