Israel Defense Forces troops during ongoing counter-terrorism operations in Samaria took over the residence of the deputy mayor of Al-Mughayyir, turning it into a temporary army headquarters and hoisting Israeli flags in the hostile Palestinian village.
“Last Saturday night, IDF forces entered and took over the house of a terrorist which was used to carry out military activities in the village—no more partial and dangerous raids. Only a real hold on the territory will bring security to the Jewish residents who live in the nearby communities and travel on Allon Road,” the Joint Security Committee for Allon Road, a local Israeli pressure group, told Channel 14 News.
“We congratulate the brigade commander and the [IDF’s] Mevo Shiloh Company on changing their course after a long period of blinding laser attacks and terrorist incidents emanating from the village of murderers and Hamas supporters, Al-Mughayyir,” the statement concluded.
Al-Mughayyir, located 17 miles northeast of Ramallah and 21 miles southeast of Nablus, has emerged as a major hub for Palestinian terrorism in recent months. In April, the main mosque in the village broadcasted a speech by Hamas propaganda chief Abu Obeida. In it, he called on Palestinians to expand the terrorist group’s war to Judea and Samaria. (Another village of the same name is located farther north, near Jenin.)
On April 13, the body of Israeli boy Binyamin Achimeir, 14, was found near the southern Al-Mughayyir village after he was brutally murdered by an Arab terrorist while shepherding livestock from the nearby Gal Farm.
That same month, a resident of the village carried out a terrorist bombing outside the nearby Jewish town of Kochav HaShachar, lightly wounding an IDF reservist on vacation. Muhamad Ataollah Abu Alia, 22, admitted to interrogators he carried out the April 21 attack on the side of Route 458.
Following the terrorist attack, Jewish residents of the Binyamin region of southern Samaria protested against terrorism at the entrance to the village, hoisting Israeli flags and calling for IDF military action.
In the weeks after the terrorist incidents, representatives of the United States embassy in Jerusalem paid a “solidarity visit” to the village.
