The past year recorded a troubling increase in stone-throwing incidents on Highways 6 and 64 despite the fact that throughout the year, sections of the road were closed off and traffic was limited due to the coronavirus outbreak, data released by the Israel Police on Wednesday showed.
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According to police data, 110 stone-throwing incidents took place on Highway 6 alone in 2020, compared to 103 in 2019.
Some 28 such incidents took place around Wadi Ara in northern Israel – an area surrounded by Arab villages. Here, too, there was an increase from 2019, when 23 stoning attacks were recorded.
The police also revealed that in recent years, incidents in which Palestinian terrorists hurl rocks on moving Israeli vehicles – a potentially life-threatening assault – have been spreading to Israel's central highways. Nevertheless, they remain most common in Judea and Samaria.
Until 1990, drivers involved in such incidents were considered as having been in a car incident. That same year, the government changed the law to acknowledge such incidents as acts of terrorism, designating the perpetrators as terrorists.
Haim Bleicher, head of the right-wing Honenu legal aid organization, said, "The police's report confirms the public's suspicion that terrorism is hitting Israel's main roads. Unfortunately, it seems that not enough has been done to eradicate such acts of terror, most of which are committed by those who possess Israeli identity documents."
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