Israel Police powerless in the face of organized crime
Op-ed: The shooting of two different prisons in the space of five days indicates that internal terror is being waged against the security services in the country, and innocent people are bound to be caught in the violence sooner rather than later.
It’s not a trivial matter when criminals spray with bullets two different prisons in the space of five days in the State of Israel—the country that claims ensuring the safety of its citizens is its number one priority.
The first incident occurred last Wednesday when unknown perpetrators opened fire from a moving vehicle at the Hadarim Detention Center in the Sharon region, before fleeing the scene. The fact that no one was hurt in that incident only teaches us that when you shoot from a moving vehicle going at full speed, it’s hard to hit.
Two days later, fire was opened at the Ayalon Prison watchtower with an automatic weapon. The police explained that those responsible for the shooting tried to send a message after the conditions of imprisonment of one of the prominent criminals there were worsened. It was only a message, as if that is supposed to reassure us.
A message to Hadarim, a message to Ayalon, and a message to the officers at the Rimonim Prison after unknown suspects (how come they are always unknown, do the police have no intelligence units?) planted and detonated an explosive device under their vehicle.
And it doesn’t end here. A week ago, two armed bikers approached a passenger car in Holon and shot the driver at point-blank range. The fact that it was early in the morning, in close proximity to a school, didn’t really bother the shooters. It also didn’t bother those who detonated explosive devices in the Hatikva neighborhood in Tel Aviv, on the Ayalon Highway and on Highway 2. The idea that those are two of the busiest routes in the country, where there’s a real possibility of harming innocent bystanders, is lost on them.
That's exactly what happened in Jaffa about two months ago, when a 5-year-old boy was accidentally shot and seriously wounded after a group of criminals opened fire at a house he was standing near. The criminals are so carefree, they seem indifferent to the possibility that the police might track them down.
And all this before we even mention the latest statistics, which indicate that since the beginning of the year, some 13,000 women have experienced severe physical violence, and 22 of them were murdered—despite the fact that half of them filed police complaints.
To summarize, currently we have a police commissioner who promised to combat the rising organized crime and to ensure the safety of the ordinary citizens and is now ending his tenure amid the whistling of bullets and the thunderous explosions, as thousands of women pay a price. And the general public, startled by the incompetence, is wondering if and when this violence will affect them.
