Terrorist activity in the Bethlehem district is still a serious problem, accounting for the IDF’s ongoing operations in the area. There have been numerous incidents involving terrorists in the Bethlehem region and a number of suicide bombers have come from the area.

2007

On Oct. 11, the IDF detained Issa Muhammad Jawarish in Bethlehem, a high-ranking Hamas member active in the West Bank. [1]

On Sept. 9, Israeli security forces detained a high-ranking operative of the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group and his collaborator in the village of Al-Shawawra, east of Bethlehem. The two belonged to a terrorist squad active in the area. [2]

On Aug. 8, an improvised explosive device was detonated against IDF forces operating in Beit Omar, a village near Bethlehem, and two Molotov cocktails were thrown at them. [3]

On April 12, shots were fired at Israeli civilians in a car, close to the settlement of Tekoa, south of Bethlehem, by members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group. [4]

On Jan. 4, Israeli security forces detained Tawfiq Abu Zaid in Bethlehem. During 2006, Abu Zaid had been involved in many shooting attacks directed against IDF forces and enlisted operatives to carry out shooting attacks and plant explosive devices for ambushes against IDF soldiers. He also manufactured weapons, specializing in explosive devices. [5]

2004-2005

On  Oct. 16, 2005 three people, cousins, Matat Rosenfeld Adler and Kineret Mandel, and 14-year-old Oz Ben Meir were killed in a drive by shooting at the Gush Etzion junction south of Jerusalem. The terrorists who carried out the attack fled to the Bethlehem village of El-Aroub. [6]

On April 1, 2004, the IDF raided the Dehaisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem and arrested a number of terrorists, including Palestinian security personnel who were planning to carry out attacks against Israeli civilians. Twelve terrorists, most of them from Fatah Tanzim, had hidden in a psychiatric hospital, a violation of international law. [7]

On March 12, 2004, Andaliv (Takataka) Suleiman from Bethlehem and a member of Fatah Tanzim, blew herself up at the entrance of Jerusalem's Mahane Yehuda market near an Egged bus. She killed four Israeli civilians, two foreign workers from China and injured more than 60. She entered Jerusalem through Abu Dis, an East Jerusalem neighborhood. [8]

 On Feb. 22, 2004, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades dispatched Muhammed Za'ul from Bethlehem to Jerusalem. He detonated a bomb strapped to his body on Egged bus No. 14A in Jerusalem, killing eight and wounding more than 60; 11 of them were high school students. [9]

 On March 29, 2002, Iat Alacharas, 23, from Dehaisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem killed two civilians and injured 22 when she detonated her explosives belt at a supermarket in Jerusalem's Kiryat Yovel neighborhood. Fatah Tanzim claimed responsibility for the attack. [10]