IDF soldiers rescue Israeli civilians who entered Palestinian town to retrieve stolen motorcycle

Israeli security forces rescued ten civilians from the Palestinian city of Qalqilya on Monday evening, after they illegally entered the town to retrieve a stolen motorcycle.

Like most Palestinian towns in Judea and Samaria, which are designated as “Area A” under the Oslo Accords, entry to Jews is strictly forbidden under Israeli law due to security concerns.

Large red signs warn Israelis against entry to these areas, noting it is “dangerous to your lives.”

In Monday’s incident, “a lynching was prevented,” a police source told Ynet News. It was also relatively unique among the almost weekly instances of Israelis having to be rescued from towns in Judea and Samaria, which are usually caused either by navigation errors or religious Jews praying at sites located within majority-Palestinian towns.

This time, a group of ten Israelis apparently entered the town on purpose, aiming to find and retrieve a motorcycle stolen on Sunday from the Israeli town of Elad.

The Israeli Civil Administration governing the Israeli-controlled areas of Judea and Samaria received a report that the group had been noticed and their four vehicles were surrounded by a crowd of dozens of angry locals. The crowd was reportedly trying to isolate and surround the cars.

However, when the administration called one of the Israelis on the phone to warn the group, he reportedly told them, “I'm not leaving Qalqilya without the motorcycle.”

The Civil Administration then alerted local IDF and Border Police troops, which rushed to the scene in force. Using riot-control measures, they distanced the crowd from the cars and managed to extract them safely from the area. The motorcycle was found and returned to its owner later, the report added.

According to Ynet News, one of the Israelis was known to the security forces and had already been rescued from Qalqilya a week ago.

A military spokesman said in response, “The IDF emphasizes that entry into Area A is prohibited and dangerous for Israelis and constitutes a violation of the law.”

In recent years, anti-Israel outlets like Middle East Eye have tried to paint the entry restrictions on Israelis as another Israeli ploy to control the area, ostensibly marking Palestinian areas as “dangerous while keeping them contained inside.”

The IDF has to rescue Israelis from Palestinian towns almost every week. The local residents are usually extremely hostile toward any Israeli they identify in their town, often throwing stones, or in extreme cases, trying to murder them.

The most infamous of these cases occurred in 2000, when two IDF reservists driving in a civilian car mistakenly entered Ramallah. After being detained in a Palestinian Authority police station, a large crowd descended on them, murdering and horrifically mutilating their bodies.

Nowadays, these types of incidents often happen when religious Jews insist on visiting a holy site, like Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, outside of regular visiting hours, when they would be accompanied by IDF soldiers.

In a somewhat unusual version of this event, last week several Hasidic ultra-Orthodox Jews had to be extricated from the village of Mukhmas, where they had fled by mistake while running from the police after being pulled over for erratic driving.

Shortly after, they called the police from Mukhmas, where a local crowd surrounded their car and threw stones at them. The IDF later said it arrested eight Palestinians suspected of chasing and assaulting the group.

Other times, Israelis seek to save money by purchasing groceries or getting their cars fixed in Palestinian towns, where prices are significantly lower than in Israel. Before the Intifadas, thousands of Israelis would get their groceries in Judea, Samaria, or even in the Gaza Strip.

Another unusual incident illustrating this issue happened last month, when IDF troops extracted 23 deaf Israelis from central Nablus. According to i24 News, the Israelis were invited to Nablus by a Palestinian friend – who is also deaf.

The group in their Israeli license-plated cars was spotted by a local who alerted Palestinian security forces, who took them to a local police station, where the IDF picked them up before safely taking them out of the city.