Hevron was the site of intense hostilities over the weekend, and Jewish residents there spent much of the Sabbath ducking bullets. Terrorists from the Shalhevet (Abu Sneineh) and Harat a-Sheikh hills overlooking the Jewish neighborhoods attacked with automatic weapons and firebombs almost throughout the entire Sabbath, lightly wounding 8-year-old Haggai Ze’ev in his face. An IDF soldier was lightly hurt in a firebomb attack. Two caravan homes in the Admot Yeshai neighborhood were hit by gunfire, exchanges of which continued sporadically up til last night.

What the residents felt was long overdue Israeli tank fire finally partially destroyed some terrorist positions last night. Israeli soldiers identified and opened fire upon five armed men entering a building in Abu Sneineh – clearly in order to resume shooting onto the Jewish homes below; two Fatah Tanzim terrorists were killed, and three were wounded. Hevron Jewish Community spokesmen continue to demand that the army return permanently to those areas from which terrorists continue to attack, and Arutz-7′s Haggai Huberman reports the commonly-held assumption that objectively, “this can be absolutely the only way to stop the shooting onto Jewish homes.”

A festive dinner was held in honor of the Hevron Jewish Community in Rehovot last night. Among several other prominent speakers, Public Security Minister Uzi Landau said,

“It’s no secret that within this government there are tough disagreements, between those who still support Oslo and who see Arafat as a partner who has erred, Mr. Peres among them – and those who think that Oslo was a great mistake and a tragedy, and who see Arafat as our enemy who must be fought and the PA banished back to Tunis. In this struggle [with the Palestinians], we need not suffice with a ceasefire – nor should we run, and we certainly should not crawl demeaningly, to negotiate with [the Palestinians]. We must rather always fight them, not by reacting to their attacks, but by constantly striking at them wherever they are; not just to wait for terrorist attacks, but to constantly hit them. They must always be running away. We must strike at them militarily, and economically, and in their prestige and authority and stability of the Palestinian Authority – until it collapses. ‘There is nothing good about them, they are all just wounds and bruises and putrefying sores’ (Isaiah 1, 6)…”

Hevron resident Yitzik Pass, whose 10-month-old daughter Shalhevet was murdered by Arabs earlier this year, told the participants, “People ask us how we are able to stay in Hevron, with the constant gunfire and dangers, etc. The answer is that we receive strength from three sources. The first is the Torah… the second is the belief in the Land of Israel… and the third is the belief in the People of Israel – we know that we are their emissaries in perpetuating our connection to these historic areas…”

This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2001 and is filed under news.