BINYAMIN REGION, Samaria – A growing wave of terrorism has Israelis on high alert. It prompted Israel’s military counter-terrorism operation in the Palestinian city of Jenin this week. At the site of recent murders, Israelis living in the biblical heartland are on the front lines.
Many Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria will tell you they have a good life most of the time.
Israel Ganz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council, told CBN News, “I can say we’re living a dream because every step we do every morning, when we wake up, we wake up in the land of the Bible. We see the prophecy coming alive. And like those times we have challenges here.”
Recently, especially over the last two weeks, those challenges include an increase in terror attacks.
Much of the world calls this territory the West Bank, although in the Bible, God gave the territory north of Jerusalem to the tribe of Benjamin.
Ganz believes this time is no different from any other in Jewish history.
“In the last two weeks – only in Binyamin – we had 200 terror attacks. I mean, we had five shooting terror attacks and we (had) 200 stoning(s), Molotov cocktails; but after all, if it was our residents, most of day it’s like (a regular day).” He added, “Of course you heard about (the) terrible terror attack that we had two weeks ago in a gas station near Eli.”
The gas station and an adjacent hummus restaurant just outside the Jewish community of Eli was the site of one of the most recent terror attacks in Judea and Samaria. Two terrorists murdered four Israeli men. One of the men was an employee of Hummus Eliyahu.
The son of Eliana Passentin, the international desk director for the Binyamin Regional council, works at the restaurant.
On the day of the attack Passentin recalled, “I called up my son Eitan, who works here at Hummus Eliyahu, and he didn’t answer his phone. I think it was maybe a minute, a minute and a half, but it was the longest minute and a half of my life; and when he finally answered, I realized that he’s okay, but someone else was killed.”
Passentin, a mother of eight, lives and works in the Binyamin region. While her 15-year-old son Eitan survived the attack, his friend Elisha did not.
“On one hand I’m so grateful he’s okay and alive, but we lost a lot of good people here,” she said regretfully. “And, even if you’re happy for your own personal family, you’re not really happy because your friends – your families in your town – lost their children.”
Aviad Gizbar, owner of the restaurant, told CBN News, “It was a warm and pleasant afternoon. Two terrorists arrived here in a stolen car with yellow (Israeli) plates…They opened fire just in front of the Hummus restaurant with two M-16 rifles, and they started to spray the entire area.”
Gizbar was on military reserve duty when the attack happened.
“It was our luck that the place was empty,” he said. “Ten minutes earlier, the place was bursting with a party.”
19-year-old Elkana Sadya was managing the restaurant that day. He pointed to the place where the attack began. “There, by the flag of Eli, the terrorists got out of the car. I was inside. I heard shooting and looked, within a second or two I crouched down. I didn’t even have time to see their faces, I only saw someone with a gun,” he said.
Motioning to the spot where three men had been shot, Sadya continued, “I saw Nahman here, Elisha and Mahsud. Then the first paramedic arrived to assess the situation inside.”
Sadya described the extensive damage to the building. “We have this hole in the glass. This is the first place, apparently here, here’s an entry hole, here’s another one. And here we found a bullet a week ago inside the wooden table. Here, there are a few holes. Here you can see in the beer (dispenser).’
He went on to show the damage to the lemonade machine and holes in the kitchen area where he was preparing hummus “Here’s the exit of what we saw from the outside, we have here a hole in the lemonade (machine). I was standing here in the corner, preparing hummus, so I bent down here, I ran to the storage room, in the end most of the time I was in the corner. Here, it’s full of holes, here there’s another hole and here. Also, this,” he said.
Gizbar the owner told us there hasn’t been a deadly terror attack in the area of Eli for 20 years.
“With tearful eyes, our hands work,” he said. “There’s no choice, we must continue to work. We’re starting to ease things. It’s sad, sad, sad. I’m really sad all the time, but now we have a different task – to try to go forward as much as possible.”
Despite the rise in violence, Gizbar says there will always be Jews here.
“We will win. Period. There’s no other option. It’s not in our lexicon to lose. It’s hard for me to say in the middle of my business, in the midst of my home, Jews were murdered; but to my great sorrow, our history is full of things like this. But in the end, look at the State we have.”
Ganz believes Israel must never give in to terrorism and he supports military operations such as the one in Jenin.
“We have to defeat the terror. We have to change the city, have to stop the terror that (is) raised inside the city. We must do that, Gantz said. “For me, the operation in Jenin, it’s only the beginning. I’m sure it will be continuous for this process.”
He said he can feel the prayers and the support of people around the world.
“I can promise you, the battles we have here with the terror – it’s not our battle. We’re not protecting ourself, we’re protecting the world,” Ganz stated. “And we will stay here strong, not only for us, but all over the world the good (people in the) world that want to protect himself from the terror. We’ll do it. We will be here, deepen our roots, and we’ll be your ambassadors here in the biblical land.”
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at CBN