The tragedy, on both sides, escalates.

9 Israelis killed in shooting attack north of Ramallah

Nine Israelis were killed and six were injured, four of them seriously, in a shooting attack Sunday morning on an IDF roadblock north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, near the settlement of Ofra. Another Israeli was killed when Palestinian gunmen opened fire on an IDF position south of the Kissufim crossing in the Gaza Strip.

A total of 20 Israelis have been killed in four attacks in less than 24 hours, including nine people killed in a suicide attack in Jerusalem on Saturday evening and a policeman shot dead in the Judean Desert on Saturday afternoon.
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12 Palestinians, IDF soldier die in refugee camps operation

An IDF soldier and 12 Palestinians died over the weekend in the operation against the Balata and Jenin West Bank refugee camps.
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The IDF in the refugee camps

The 18th month of the violent conflict between the Palestinians and Israel, a stand-off which has already cost close to 300 Israeli lives and more than 1000 Palestinian fatalities, began with an IDF operation in the Balata refugee camp (in the Nablus area) and the Jenin refugee camp. These camps are strongholds of organizations that use terror against Israel - Tanzim and Hamas. These organizations control the camps to an extent that even deters members of the Palestinian Authority's security apparatus; and the Tanzim branch does not heed orders given by various PA leaders.

This is anarchy wrapped within anarchy. The PA apparatus is not cracking down on organizations that adhere to their own independent agendas; and these organizations are not imposing their authority on local militias in places such as Balata. Assuming that the IDF would refrain from entering refugee camps, especially Balata, terror groups stepped up their activity in them - they manufactured Kassam missiles as well as explosives (such as those used in suicide bombers' belts), and they plotted and worked out the logistics of attacks.
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The view from Beit El

It is difficult to comprehend how, among the nearly 5,000 inhabitants of Beit El, there is not a single righteous man in Sodom, no one who will stand up and admit wholeheartedly that his settlement, and all others like it, is the cause of all this suffering. How is it that there is not a single settler in Beit El who is losing sleep over the women in labor who cannot get to the hospital, the sick people who die along the twisted dirt paths, the children who must walk to pay a holiday visit to their grandmother?

It must take a large degree of cold-heartedness to drive on the paved road leading from your house and see the large numbers of people who are forced to walk in the mud and rubble just because of the existence of your settlement - and to keep on believing in the justice of that distorted path; to see all that suffering through your window without batting an eyelash. The dispute with these settlements cannot be a political discussion only, but also a deep moral dispute because of the human suffering they impose on their neighbors.

Now, however, it is not only the suffering of the neighboring Palestinians that is on the heads of the residents of Beit El, but also the blood of the soldiers killed defending them.

The truth must be said: If Beit El, Talmon and Dolev were not there, the checkpoints of Ein Ariq and Surda would not be there either. They have no connection to the security of the state and the seven soldiers killed there up to now would not have been killed. Does the fate of these Israeli soldiers not give rise to any second thoughts in Beit El, either?
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