A car bomb neutralized on Monday near the entrance to the Jewish community of Ateret in the Binyamin region of Samaria was intended to detonate while a school bus was passing by, security officials believe.
According to the Kan News broadcaster, the bomb, which was planted inside a gas cylinder, contained more than 100 pounds of explosive material.
In addition, an initial probe of the incident shows that the bomb contained a camera facing the road, allowing the terrorists to detonate the explosive device remotely when a bus passed by, Kan reported.
Channel 12 News said the vigilance of a local Israeli resident prevented a “major disaster,” with Israeli security forces neutralizing the heavy bomb before school busses entered the town on Monday morning.
Israel Ganz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council, which has jurisdiction over the area of Ateret, said on Monday, “The terrorism in Judea and Samaria requires military action just like in Gaza and Rafah.”
“The population must be mobilized and the neighborhoods and terrorist infrastructures must be razed to the ground,” stated Ganz, whose Yesha Council also represents the 500,000 Israelis living in Judea and Samaria.
On Friday, terrorists linked to Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction carried out a double car bombing in the Gush Etzion area of Judea, wounding two Israeli soldiers and a security guard.
Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades warned that it would “pursue the occupier at every intersection, alley and neighborhood, until it is expelled from our land and our holy sites, Inshallah [‘God willing’].”
Following the attacks, the Yesha Council called on Israelis to gather in protest at intersections in Judea and Samaria at 6 p.m. on Tuesday. The call for mass demonstrations marked the first time that the organization called for protests against the government since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition was instated in Dec. 2022.
“The residents of Judea and Samaria no longer rely on miracles,” the invitation read. “A war is being waged in Judea and Samaria; the prime minister and the IDF should treat it as a war and fight the terrorist infrastructure in the Arab cities just as they fight in Gaza and Rafah!”
Since January of this year, Judea and Samaria saw more than 500 Arab terrorist attacks each month on average, according to figures published on Aug. 1 by Rescuers Without Borders (Hatzalah Judea and Samaria).
During that time, first responders recorded 3,272 acts of terrorism in the region, including 1,868 cases of rock-throwing, 456 attacks with Molotov cocktails, 299 explosive charges and 109 shootings.
Terrorists have killed 14 people and wounded more than 155 others in Judea and Samaria since the start of the year, the rescue group said.
