Israel's Illegal Immigrants Problem

 Nadene Goldfoot

"A 37 year old terrorist, who entered Israel illegally from his village in Samaria, rammed his car into a 68 year old man in Beit She'an (in northern Israel), killing him," evidently on purpose.

Palestinians generally require specific permits from Israeli authorities to enter Israel legally for work or other exceptional humanitarian reasons, and these permits are often limited in number. For those without permits, illegal entry methods include: 

• Breaching the barrier: Individuals often use ropes or makeshift aids to climb over sections of the Israeli West Bank barrier where there are breaches or known weak points.
• ** circumventing checkpoints**: While there are official checkpoints, many illegal entrants bypass these by finding unsecured routes, particularly in rural or less monitored areas along the "seam line" separating the West Bank from pre-1967 Israel.
• Smuggling: Smugglers are also involved in facilitating the movement of people across the border. 

Israeli officials report that thousands of Palestinians attempt to enter Israel illegally each month using these methods. Security forces work to thwart these attempts, with arrests of large groups being a regular occurrence. 

The map above shows Samaria, in Hebrew-Shomron), the northern land and Judea the southern including Jerusalem. ; which had been the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel that was founded in about 880 BCE by King Omri of Israel; built on a hill bought from Shemer (I Kings 16:24).  The site was 7 miles NW of Shechem, now Nablus, and was on an isolated elevation dominating a wide countryside consisting of 25 acres. The name, Samaria, is also applied to the entire northern region of the central Highlands of Eretz Yisrael. 

The Assyrians, led by King Shalmaneser V and completed by Sargon II, conquered Samaria, the capital of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, around 722 BCE after a three-year siege, leading to the deportation of many Israelites and the settlement of foreigners in the region, creating the people known as Samaritans.   

It was later passed to the Neo-Babylonian Empire, then the Persians, and was rebuilt by Herod the Great as Sebastia. 

 The Second Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE (Common Era), specifically on the 9th of Av (around August 30th) during the First Jewish-Roman War, marking a catastrophic event that ended the Second Temple period and reshaped Jewish history. Roman forces under General Titus besieged the city and set fire to the Temple after months of fighting. 

Jews got control of the biblical region of Samaria (referred to by Israel as Judea and Samaria) back after the 1967 Six-Day War, when Israel captured it from Jordan, restoring Jewish authority over the area for the first time since the Second Temple's destruction, leading to the re-establishment of Jewish communities there.

 A short time later our 37 year old terrorist rammed into a 16 year old, lightly injuring him. 

The terrorist then drove onto Highway 71 toward the Ein Harod area, where he rammed a vehicle carrying a 19-year-old woman near Kibbutz Tel Yosef. The woman, Aviv Maor of Kibbutz Ein Harod Ihud, managed to flee her car, but the terrorist chased her and stabbed her to death.                                       

The terrorist then drove toward Afula, where he was stopped near the city and neutralized by a security guard.  Afula is located in the Jezreel Valley (also known as the Valley of Megiddo) in the Northern District of Israel, in the region historically known as the Lower Galilee, not in Samaria or Judea. It is often referred to as the "Capital of the Valley" due to its central location. While Afula is geographically separate from the regions of Judea and Samaria, it is close to the administrative border with the northern West Bank (Samaria region), which has made it a target of terrorist attacks in the past.

Afula, Israel, had a population of approximately 64,578 in 2023, though recent estimates for 2025 place it around 54,250, with figures varying slightly depending on the source and date. It's a diverse city in the Jezreel Valley, known as the "Capital of the Jezreel Valley," with a predominantly Jewish population alongside Arab residents and immigrants from places like Ethiopia, the former Soviet Union, and Latin America.

Resource:

israelAM

https://bible.ucg.org/bible-commentary/2-Kings/Fall-of-Samaria;-Rest-of-Israel-deported/