Very late on Friday night, Israeli military and counterintelligence forces intercepted a would-be suicide bomber on his way to Tel Aviv, wearing a suicide belt, and persuaded him to disrobe and surrender. The action was a sharp contrast to the killing last week of an innocent man by the British police, who mistakenly thought he was a suicide bomber.
The Israelis have failed to stop suicide bombers many times. But they have succeeded far more often. Among the differences in the situations faced by the two countries, perhaps the most significant is intelligence. Israel occupies the West Bank and its army and officials of the Shin Bet counterterrorism agency patrol it constantly. They have mapped every building and built a network of informants and collaborators. Many Israeli officers speak Arabic, and they often receive a warning before a bomber tries to attack.
Boaz Ganor, a counterterrorism expert at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, an Israeli policy research center, said, "The key is intelligence, to know when they're coming."
The last option is offense, he said, because when confronted with a suicide bomber in a crowded area, "you have to act" before the bomber can detonate the explosive. The risk of "false positives," however, is enormous, he said, as in the British case.
Israel is also building a separation barrier -- an electronic fence and in some places a huge concrete wall -- to make it harder for would-be bombers to enter Israel. They would have to travel circuitous routes, giving more time for intelligence to hear about their mission, and when they cut through fences -- as young Jihad Shihade, 18, did on Friday night -- sensors chirp and patrols set out to find the infiltrators. A successful suicide bomber in Netanya on July 12 managed to circumvent the barrier.
But there have been only rare cases of suicide bombers being confronted once they arrive. Usually, once they arrive, they blow themselves up or change their minds. There have been numerous cases of bombers blowing themselves up at checkpoints outside Israeli cities when they realize they cannot get through, and other cases of Israeli soldiers stopping suspicious people, many of them young, and forcing them to undress at a distance and unstrap their suicide belts.
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