JNS
Palestinian scrapyards near the Green Line dismantle vehicles within minutes, with booty repurposed as replacement parts.
"In the wee hours of the night in early January, I received a phone call from a friend who works in a company that tracks vehicles," Yosef Hayim Magnezi told me, as his eyes scan the "smugglers' highway," the route that connects the Rantis checkpoint, east of Ben-Gurion International Airport, to Ni'lin via Qibiya that is bordered by countless illegal chop-shops and scrapyards.
"Listen," his friend said, "we have located a stolen car that has crossed over to your side, literally at the foot of your farm. Can you take a look?"
Magnezi went to the top of the hill, and there, eye to eye with him, were the blazing headlights. The stolen car was making its way in the darkness, undisturbed, toward one of the chop shops.
"I see the car," the farmer reported, and at his friend's request, he set out on a high-speed chase while placing a call to the Israel Police. "We caught the vehicle minutes before the tracking device was disabled."
The Regavim NGO has filed a first-of-its-kind High Court of Justice petition against an illegal chop shop, one of many similar illegal enterprises operated by Arabs throughout Judea and Samaria.
Most of these outfits are set up adjacent to the Judea and Samaria security barrier, for two main reasons: Israelis from inside the Green Line frequent them for cheap car repairs or to buy cars that have been designated for the scrap heap, and because they enable very rapid "treatment" of vehicles stolen from nearby Israeli cities.
Last week, we joined members of the Regavim movement's field staff for a visit to one of the most important hotspots of automotive theft in central Israel.
Through the Rantis checkpoint, a short ride from Shoham, car thieves drive at dizzying speed along the path that stretches from the village of Qibiya, perhaps best known for retaliation strikes carried out by the legendary Unit 101 commandoes in the 1950s, to Ni'lin, northwest of Modi'in. Yosef told us that it's only five minutes from the Rantis checkpoint to the string of illegal junkyards. "At 150 kph [93 mph]?" I ask. "No," Yosef said, "much faster than that."
The preferred method of the car thieves isn't particularly sophisticated or complicated. They sneak across the Green Line through the Rantis passage, steal a car from one of the cities of central Israel, and then step on the gas all the way back to the Binyamin region of Samaria.
It's a short distance, and the fact that there are only sporadic checks of cars re-entering Judea and Samaria makes it easy to disappear into the sprawl of Arab villages. A few weeks ago, a driver of one such vehicle hit a security booth at the checkpoint while trying to escape from the police who were in pursuit. It was a miracle that no one was injured.
"This area is truly the Wild West," Menash, Regavim's field coordinator for Judea and Samaria, told us.
In the area between Route 465, aka the Trans-Binyamin Route, the IDF base at Adam, and the security barrier, there are dozens of illegal junkyards. Aside from the fact that they are causing massive environmental damage and that they are unlicensed, they also serve as disassembly lines for stolen vehicles: Within minutes of their high-speed arrival, tracking devices are removed, and the car is virtually untraceable.
The strategic spot
Magnezi's farm, located in the most strategic spot in the area, wasn't established to act against car thieves, but it is playing an important supporting role in efforts to fight against them. The residents of the farm identify stolen vehicles, report to the police and the army even though the authorities are often unable to devote the necessary resources due to the overload of tasks, and cooperate with the tracking companies to help locate stolen vehicles.
The chop shop that has the starring role in the Regavim petition is located above Route 446, adjacent to the Ofarim Junction. Unlike others in the area, this one isn't located deep in the territory; it's adjacent to the main road. On Saturdays, the chop shop is packed with Israelis who come to have their cars repaired for a fraction of what it would cost in a legal Israeli garage. They don't know where the replacement parts come from, whether from cars that have been deemed unsafe and decommissioned by the Ministry of Transport or from stolen vehicles, and because the "garage" is operating illegally, there's no way to track the parts' origin.
Menash explains the deeper problems behind these illegal operations as we drive up to the chop shop against which Regavim has petitioned.
"These chop shops have everything to gain from car theft: Often, cars are stolen on a 'special order' basis on behalf of garage owners within the Green Line. In addition, the State of Israel prefers to ignore decommissioned vehicles rather than provide reasonable solutions for the owners to dispose of them."
We turn into the lot and park the car. The workers apparently suspect that we are undercover police or Shin Bet agents, and they cooperate with us while following our every move.
"I'm from this village over here," says one of them, and when we ask who owns the business, he says, "It's jointly owned—an Israeli from Elad and a Palestinian from this area."
When we make our way back to our car, they follow us, under the pretense of getting to work on an Israeli Mercedes that's undergoing extensive work. "It was a taxi," they explain as they get into the vehicle, "We've done major body work and installed a new battery."
To enforce laws
The respondents named in Regavim's petition for a temporary injunction are Defense Minister Israel Katz, Minister in the Defense Ministry Betzalel Smotrich, OC Central Command Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, Civil Administration head Brig. Gen. Hisham Ibrahim, the Civil Administration's environmental protection officer and the custodian of abandoned and government property.
The petition asks the respondents to explain "why you are not taking all necessary steps to enforce laws for the protection of state land and resources, planning and construction laws and environmental protection laws through issuance of eviction notices, work stop orders, demolition and restraining orders against the operation of the illegal, polluting automotive scrapyard near the Ofarim Junction."
"The invasion of state land and the illegal work are being carried out in Area C, which is under full Israeli civil and security jurisdiction, in a manner that harms the rights of the public and the state," the petition notes.
Before filing the petition, numerous actions were taken in an attempt to spur the authorities to enforce the law, but no effective ones were carried out.
"What we see before us is a brazen takeover of registered state land that is being completely ignored by the authorities, a serious breach of responsibility that is allowing illegal expropriation of public resources," Regavim's petition charges, alongside a demand for immediate action against the chop shop.
There are three main clusters of illegal chop shops. Aside from those in the Binyamin region, there is a city of chop shops in the Mount Hebron region near the Meitarim checkpoint in Judea, and a large concentration of chop shops near the security barrier in northern Samaria, not far from Shaked and Hinanit.
These locations ensure a constant flow of customers from both sides of the security barrier, Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, while the authorities turn a blind eye.
Regavim considers this a flagship petition, a test case for enforcement against the illegal chop shops that it considers "the foundation stone of the automotive theft industry in Israel." In the NGO's words, "We must halt this severe problem."
Israel Ganz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council and the Yesha Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria: "Criminality and environmental damage are a security hazard. The enforcement system must root out this industrial-scale criminality by local Arabs. There is a direct connection between illegal businesses and terrorism, and we expect the law enforcement system to act without delay."
Originally published by Israel Hayom.
