Despite yesterday’s massacre, the plans to withdraw the IDF forces from most of Hevron this week are still in effect. A senior Central Command officer told Arutz-7′s Haggai Huberman that the redeployment would take place after two issues are agreed upon: What security authorities the Arabs in Hevron will assume, and in which evacuated areas the IDF could continue to operate. “There certainly will not be a hasty retreat as there was in Bethlehem,” the official said.

The IDF forces will continue to patrol, in any event, in the Abu Sneineh and Haret a-Sheikh hills overlooking the Jewish neighborhoods. Snipers from these areas have shot many times at the Jewish homes below. Ten-month-old Shalhevet Pas was murdered in this manner with a shot to her head last year.

Hevron Spokesman David Wilder notes that escaping Hevron terrorists found haven in Bethlehem after the IDF withdrew from that city, as IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon said only two weeks ago. “Withdrawing from Hevron will simply allow them to return to their homes and safely prepare future attacks that will endanger Hevron and the entire country,” Wilder said. Leaders of nationalist parties in the Knesset wrote last week to Prime Minister Sharon, “We believe it is unthinkable to again abandon the security of Hevron’s Jews, leaving them to the responsibility and ‘good will’ of the Palestinian ‘security’ forces.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 23rd, 2002 and is filed under hotnews.