The attacks carried out last month in Jerusalem were among the most complex to detonate.
The fact that one person was responsible for them, without partners, made it very difficult for the Shin Bet and the police, who this time were facing a real professional, or as a security official defined him - a saboteur with the qualities of our best fighters.
The terrorist, Islam Faroh, did and learned everything by himself.
He gained knowledge about assembling payloads on social networks, and used his experience as an engineer to put it into practice.
The charges he prepared were of a relatively high standard, and if he had not been captured he would have carried out additional attacks using charges he had already prepared and were caught in his hiding place in the West Bank.
About a month later: a rider on a motorcycle and places a load - new documentation from the attack in Jerusalem // Credit: Chaim Goldberg Shabbat Square
The execution was also at a high level: two scenes almost at the same time, with the intention of detonating another bomb on the rescue forces, and a successful escape from the scene without being caught.
Prouch moves between the arenas using a scooter, which he also hid in the bank.
Since he realized that his weak point was technological exposure, he made sure to compartmentalize and stay away from phones and did not share his intentions with anyone.
His capture in a relatively short time is an impressive professional achievement.
In the past, there were individual terrorists who managed to escape for a long time, until they were located and arrested.
A prominent case is that of the terrorist who in 2002 carried out the attack in Wadi Harmia, in which 10 Israelis were murdered.
For a long time, various theories prevailed about the identity of the killer, and some even claimed that he was a mercenary from the Irish underground.
Only about two and a half years after the attack, a Palestinian from the village of Silwad was arrested, who admitted that he acted as a lone attacker.
The weapons seized after the attack, photo: Police spokespersons
In most cases, individual terrorists find it difficult to carry out attacks of this quality.
This is the classic security dilemma: a terrorist cell is able to carry out much more deadly attacks because of the large number of partners and its qualities, but this is also its weak point - many people require coordination, and coordination increases exposure and the possibilities of countermeasures.
On the other hand, a single terrorist acts alone and is difficult to thwart, but the possibility of damage inherent in him is much smaller.
Police scanning the scene of the attack (archive), photo: Oren Ben Hakon
Prokh managed to combine the two, hence his abnormalities.
This raises a natural concern about others, who might want to emulate his success.
His activity proved how relatively easy it is to do: the information is available on the Internet, the materials are simple to purchase, and only basic technical ability and a lot of motivation are required to produce a lethal charge.
In the absence of partners and technological exposure, it is difficult to impossible for the Shin Bet to stop such a terrorist in advance. Fortunately, most individual terrorists are more impulsive and less sophisticated, and choose more primitive and simpler methods such as stabbing and trampling.
The successful deciphering of the case also requires dealing with the identity of the terrorist - a resident of Kfar Aqab in East Jerusalem and holder of a blue ID card, which allowed him full freedom of movement in Israel.
Most of the citizens of East Jerusalem are law-abiding citizens, but the reality that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians live in Jerusalem (by their definition and by our definition) - who are residents but not full citizens of Israel, with severe problems of infrastructure, employment, education and welfare - is a constant recipe for friction and a dangerous potential for terrorism.
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