Thursday, March 08, 2012

8-Mar-12: Shalit epilogue continued

The Shalit transaction
Khalid Makhamira, a 39-year-old Palestinian Arab who was recently released as part of the Gilad Schalit prisoner exchange was re-arrested by soldiers from the IDF's Kfir Brigade today in the village of Yata in the southern Hebron Hills.

Reporting in the Jerusalem Post this evening, Yaakov Katz says the arrest did not go smoothly. A Palestinian Arab stabbed one of the Kfir soldiers who opened fire, injuring the attacker and killing another Palestinian Arab who was with him. Both Palestinian Arabs are reported to be teenagers. The soldier has moderate injuries and was evacuated to Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Karem, Jerusalem.

Makhamira was arrested in 2006. According to the Jerusalem Post's article, he was serving a life sentence for his involvement in terrorist shooting attacks on Israelis during the Arafat War (the so-called Second Intifada that Arafat and his Fatah organization launched on Jewish New Year in 2000). From our own investigation, he was in prison after being convicted of deliberate killing, shooting with a lethal weapon and membership of a prohibited organization. He is prisoner number 160 on the October 2011 Shalit list under the name Khalid Musa Id Shahada Makhamira.

Originally a member of Fatah, he graduated to Hamas during his five years in an Israeli prison and was then set prematurely and unjustly free as one of the 1,027 terrorists released as the price for the freedom of the Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit.

Makhamira's re-arrest today is said to be for engaging in terrorist activity, specifically the smuggling of cash to fund terrorist activity in the West Bank. Katz writes that Makhamira is the fifth Palestinian Arab from the Shalit deal to be re-arrested in recent weeks. But as the very astute blogger Challah Hu Akbar notes today, Palestinian sources say the talley till now is actually more than five.

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