Soldiers standing guard outside a Jewish school in the port city of Antwerp, Belgium on January 18, 2014.

300 soldiers were deployed in Belgium to protect sensitive buildings, in particular, Jewish-related buildings, after an Islamist plot was foiled by security forces.

Jewish Home chairman Naftali Bennett said Wednesday that the IDF should deploy soldiers throughout eastern Jerusalem and weed out terrorists.

The Jerusalem police commissioner rejected the idea and said that his forces can do very well without soldiers turning the capital into an armed camp.

Bennett, feeding on fear, said the military should duplicate its 2002 Operation Defensive Shield, when soldiers struck into nests of terror in Jenin and other beds of terror throughout Judea and Samaria.

“Go in with Border Police forces, carry out arrests, set up intelligence channels and stay there on a permanent basis, not just when there’s a terror attack,” the Minister of Economy added.

Bennett said that guards at shopping centers, synagogues and schools are aimed at a specific would-be killers but that the army could “go to the source.”

Police Operations Chief Aharon Aksol rejected Bennett’s shoot-from-the-hip idea.

“The police can deal with the situation with its own forces,” he told Israel Radio.

So far, the police have shown themselves far from able to do so, but that has partly been due to a policy of virtually abandoning hotspots in Arab neighborhoods unless the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) is involved. Murders and attempted murders of Jews by Arabs the past several weeks have forced the police to start working they way they should.

Aksol still is looking for an easy way out by blaming Knesset Members for “inciting” Arabs by visiting the Temple Mount, but Bennett’s brainstorm would inflame Arabs even more by making eastern Jerusalem Arabs stare in the faces of soldiers.

Bennett would be doing the Palestinian Authority a big favor by showing the world that Jerusalem is under “occupation?”

It would show that eastern Jerusalem, which has been under Israeli sovereignty for more than three decades, is just like Judea and Samaria, which legally is under military rule.

Deploying troops in Jerusalem would expose Israel as not being able to govern. It is not like Missouri calling in the national Guard to quell riots.

And what if troops marching through the capital would eliminate terror? Who cares if it boils Arab blood?

Bennett should know very well that sending in the troops would weaken Israel.

Israel has the Shin Bet to root out terror. It needs to do a better job and probably could have prevented Tuesday’s barbarism if it had placed the murderers, cousins with a record of terror, under surveillance.

But deploying soldiers in the streets of Jerusalem also would weaken Israel on the fronts where soldiers are mostly needed – Gaza, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.

Bennett’s scheme grabbed headlines. Maybe it won him a few more supporters.

It did not win him any points for common sense.

Two IDF soldiers were wounded Tuesday afternoon in a bombing on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. The attack took place in the area near Har Dov in the Golan Heights, according to a report from the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit.

The soldiers were treated at the scene before they were evacuated by helicopter to hospital.

A second explosion hit the same outpost two hours later, but no one was wounded, according to the IDF. Israeli personnel returned fire aimed at Hezbollah targets in Lebanese territory.

Other IDF troops returned fire to an area in southern Lebanon in the wake of the explosion.

A short while ago two soldiers were injured by “An explosive device was activated against [the soldiers] during activity along the Israel-Lebanon border,” the IDF Spokesperson said in a statement. “ Initial reports indicate that the explosive device was planted with the intent to attack soldiers.”

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) from Israel were seen flying over the site of the explosion, according to the Hezbollah-linked Al Manar television station.

IDF shelling has been targeting areas near Sheba’a Farms and Kfar Shuba, the station reported.

On Sunday, IDF soldiers spotted a terror cell attempting to infiltrate into northern Israel. The soldiers fired at the infiltrators, and hit at least one, according to the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, who said the cell raced back across the border into Lebanon.

“The incident has not ended,” a senior IDF source said.

Archaeologists excavating a construction site near the Ha’Ela Junction have uncovered a curious tale that entwines the fate of an ancient mikveh with that of two Australian soldiers who somehow ended up in the same spot in World War II.

The ancient ritual pool (“mikveh” in Hebrew) was recently uncovered at the Ha’Ela Junction during the routine excavations that are always carried out prior to construction in Israel, in this case to widen Highway 38.

Nearby, an enormous 1,700-year-old water cistern was also revealed, with graffiti scrawled on the ceiling of the reservoir, apparently by Australian soldiers during World War II.

The excavations are being carried out by the Israel Antiquities Authority and are financed by the Netivei Israel Company, which is involved in the construction.

Yoav Tsur, IAA excavation director at the site, explained, “We exposed a mikveh in which there are five steps, with the fifth step being a bench where one could sit at the edge of the immersion pool.

“We found fragments of magnificent pottery vessels there, dating to the second century CE – among them lamps, red burnished vessels, a jug and cooking pots.

“Apparently the mikveh ceased to be used during the second century CE, perhaps in light of the Bar Kokhba revolt.

“A rock-hewn opening was exposed south of the mikveh, which appears to have been the entrance to a large water cistern. It seems that in an early phase it was a smaller reservoir and functioned as the “otzar) (water collection area) for the mikveh. When the mikveh ceased to be used, the cistern’s original cavity was increased to its current large dimensions and an extensive surface was built nearby, which facilitated drawing water.”

The archaeologists were also surprised to find during their excavations some graffiti engraved on the ceiling of the cistern, indicating that the site had been exposed at least until the 1940s.

Graffiti carved into ceiling of ancient cistern by Australian soldiers during World War II.

The inscriptions were read by Assaf Peretz, an archaeologist and historian with the Israel Antiquities Authority, who said that two English names were carved in the rock: Cpl Scarlett and Walsh.

“Next to the names are caved the initials RAE and two numbers: NX7792 and NX9168. The date 30/05/1940 appears below the graffiti.”

The IAA inquired with authorities who confirmed that the numbers engraved in the cistern were indeed serial numbers of two actual soldiers, and that RAE stands for Royal Australian Engineers.

A search in government archives revealed that Corporal Philip William Scarlett was born in Melbourne in 1918, was drafted into the army in 1939, survived the war and died in 1970, shortly before his fifty-second birthday.

His comrade, Patrick Raphael Walsh, was born in 1910 in Cowra, was drafted in 1939, survived the war and passed away in 2005 at the age of 95.

It seems the two were members of the Australian Sixth Division. They were stationed in the country at the time of the British Mandate and undergoing training prior to being sent into combat in France.

Because France surrendered before the troops were ready they were ultimately sent to Egypt in October 1940 where they fought at the front in the Western Desert.

The archaeologists added, “If the relatives of these people are acquainted with the story, we’ll be happy if they contact us and we’ll share with them the warm greetings left behind by Scarlett and Walsh.”

Tsur pointed out that the finds from the excavation tell an exciting tale indeed: they “allow us to reconstruct a double story – about the Jewish settlement in the second century CE, probably against the background of the events of the Bar Kokhba revolt, and another story no less fascinating, about a group of Australian soldiers who visited the [same] site c. 1,700 years later and left their mark there.”

The IDF confirmed Sunday morning that Reserve Sergeant First Class (Res.), Barak Refael Degorker, 27, of the city of Gan Yavneh north of Ashkelon, was killed Saturday night by a Hamas mortar shell.

He was the 43rd soldier to have fallen in the Protective Edge war on terror.

One other soldier was lightly wounded.

The soldiers were deployed near or in Gaza, which Hamas targeted with more than half a dozen mortar shells after Israel announced it was extending the humanitarian truce, requested by the United Nations, until midnight.

The Security Cabinet later voted 5-3 to continue the unilateral truce for another 24 hours, until midnight Sunday.

Minister Naftali Bennett, of the Jewish Home party, and Yisrael Beitenu ministers Avigdor Lieberman and Yitzchak Aharonovitch voted against the extension.

Sources in the Office of the Prime Minister said that Israel will gain more legitimacy by agreeing to the extension, despite Hamas’ continuing to fire rockets and mortar shells at Israel, and that the vote will make it easier for Israel to depend the war the terrorist infrastructure in Gaza.

Even The New York Times carried a reasonably accurate headline Saturday headlining, “Israel Agrees to Extension of Cease-Fire, but Hamas Balks.”

The article, for a change stated the facts – that the Cabinet voted to extend the ceasefire “despite continued fire from Gaza into Israel during Israel’s initial four-hour extension of a 12-hour humanitarian pause” and that “three mortars landed in open areas near Gaza just as the original lull was expiring at 8 p.m.

Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, explaining the terrorist organization’s refusal to halt the attacks, stated,  “Any humanitarian ceasefire that doesn’t secure withdrawal of occupation soldiers from inside Gaza’s border, allow citizens back into home and secure the evacuation of injuries is unacceptable,”

The last past of his statement is inaccurate. Gaza sources said Sunday that more than 140 bodies were pulled out of debris during Saturday’s humanitarian ceasefire.

Lines of tanks, armored personnel carriers and jeeps are moving along roads that were carefully paved smooth earlier this year.

Thousands of IDF soldiers already toting their gear are ready, seated in trucks and APCS, patiently waiting for orders that will decide their actions.

But for now, they’re still in waiting mode. The orders haven’t yet been issued – they’re only getting into position – everyone’s just moving south to the border with Gaza.

Disc jockeys and talk show hosts on Army Radio have that manic quality in their voices as they strain with extra effort to be especially funny in routines that have a sharper edge than usual.

The music is jumpier, punchier. No information that could let you know what’s really going on. Standard procedure for the State of Israel in high-tension security mode.

It would be smart for Gaza terrorists to rethink their actions, if they’re thinking clearly at all. Now is a good time to consider their families, if they ever consider anyone.

The requisite warning to Hamas went out. They know the steps to the dance. No fools they, the entire leadership of that terrorist organization went underground at least 48 hours ago. No bellicose statements issued from Ismail Haniyeh since the beginning of the week. He’s hiding from Israeli fighter pilots and air strikes, content to let Gaza families pay the price for his belligerence when Israel is forced to bomb rocket launchers buried up against their homes.

In that way, he’s not much different from Hezbollah terrorist chief Hassan Nasrallah, who has been in hiding for years, since the 2006 Second Lebanon War, for similar reasons.

But the rocket fire continues, and it will soon have to be silenced one way or the other. The price for leaving it is getting too high. Tens of thousands of Israeli civilians cannot sleep at night, cannot function by day. Too many children are growing up damaged. It’s approaching the time to put the matter to rest.

Israel’s flag is waving at half mast and the memory of 23,169 lost Israeli soldiers and victims of terror has quieted the nation on Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Remembrance Day.

No music plays in the neighborhoods, and children are not laughing today on the streets. A somber air is felt throughout the country as Israelis remember their fallen.

Some of those are not even Jewish. They are Bedouin or Druze or Circassians who have thrown in their lot with their Jewish neighbors. They, too, have paid the price.

Few indeed are those in this country who have not lost at least one family member in military action or terror, or are not close to someone who has, in the struggle to fulfill the mitzvah to hold this Holy Land, Eretz Tzion, Israel.

By age 16, all Jewish teens in Israel receive their first IDF notice, summoning them for exams to determine a medical, educational and psychological fitness profile. The IDF recently announced it will soon begin to send voluntary draft notices to all Christian Israelis, offering them the chance to enlist in Israel’s army as well.

By 18, most boys and girls in this country are smiling and nervously getting into fitted green or camel-colored uniforms, queuing up at central bus stations before and after Shabbat and talking about what happened in their new units “at the base.”

They’re babies, really — babies learning how to face killers; other babies fed on evil hatred since birth. Last year, 40 died, though some of those were reservists, IDF soldiers who return to serve 30 days a year to help the “newbies” and the career soldiers keep Israel safe from its enemies. “Reservists” can be soldiers in their 20s — or as old as 40.

“It is difficult, if not impossible, to show those that haven’t experienced it the size of the grief that befell us, the intensity of the shock that grasps us, and the sense of loss that fills us,” Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu explained at Monday’s ceremony at Mount Herzl military cemetery, attended also by President Shimon Peres, IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and a host of other officials.

Paraphrasing and slightly changing a well-known Psalm of King David, he said, “There, we sat at the graves of our loved ones, and wept, and we remembered our loved ones that fell for the sake of Zion.”

Sweeping the entire People of Israel into unity with Israel’s grief over its fallen, the prime minister said, “On this day, the entire people relates to the heroes of the nation. They come from all parts of the nation and from all parts of society. The simple truth that is the most concise is this: we would not be here if it were not for their sacrifice.

“Even if it means unparalleled pain, a great miracle happened here. Israel returned to her country, to her home, established a state and did wonders, but at this moment we should not forget that it is a privilege to be here.”

People came to their feet across the country as a siren wailed into the skies at 11 o’clock in the morning, reminding Israelis of the price paid for peace, and Israel’s defense.

A candle lighting ceremony at the Western Wall last night, announced by the nationwide siren at eight o’clock in the evening, also featured an address by President Peres.

“We, the Israelis, are not like every people,” the president pointed out. “Already for years a sad generation hasn’t relaxed, hasn’t been able to enjoy a time of happiness. Our joy is always missing. A cloud of sadness envelops us. It is deeply hidden, but one can see it in our eyes.”

The president spoke of parents who lost their children, “the image of the soldiers that fell in Israel’s wars… They did not have time to plant a tree. They didn’t taste the full flavor of love. They left behind you, the bereaved families… and us, the friends, to painfully remember.”