IDF Central Command Commander Major General Yehuda Fox (Fuchs) recently decided to confiscate weapons that had been given by the regional divisions to the owners of isolated agricultural farms in Judea and Samaria for their protection against Arab terrorists, Israel Hayom reported on Wednesday.
The farms in question endured a series of terrorist attacks, and confiscating their weapons effectively leaves the residents without any protection. The farmers blame Major General Fox for the decision that placed their lives in danger.
The seven long weapons that have so far been confiscated were given to the owners of the farms, who all served as combat soldiers and whose judgment is considered highly reliable. Their farms have experienced many terrorist attacks, including the Dorot Ilit Farm in Samaria, where two serious attacks have been recorded, and is located some 20 minutes away by car from the nearest Jewish community.
In one of the attacks on Dorot Ilit, about three months ago, a masked terrorist armed with a semi-automatic Carlo fired six bullets at a shepherd on the farm who managed to escape at the last moment. One year earlier, an ISIS-affiliated terrorist entered the farm with 15 explosive devices and three commando knives and tried to murder residents in their sleep. Only thanks to an armed resident who was present at the farm was this terrorist eliminated before he succeeded in carrying out his plan.
Aden Levy, a resident of the Shuvi Eretz Farm in Samaria, near the settlement of Yakir, was informed by the IDF on Wednesday that his weapon is being confiscated, a mere two days after dozens of Arab rioters from the nearby village of Beni Hassan stormed the farm and attacked one of the shepherds whose flock was grazing nearby. That event followed a series of attacks against the farm, including the burning of a residential building with all its contents a few months ago.
Zohar Sabah, the owner of a farm in the Jordan Valley who was conscripted for reserve duty at the outbreak of the war, left his farm in the hands of young volunteers, and in his absence, a band of Bedouins from a nearby illegal settlement raided his farm and stole his herd of dozens of goats. Zohar quickly returned to his farm and together with other citizens and military and police forces, after hours of searching which dozens of Arabs tried hard to disrupt, located the herd in one of the homes of the Bedouin village.
The police announced that the identity of the thieves was known and they would be arrested soon, but the extreme-left NGO “Looking the Occupation in the Eye” reported that armed settlers invaded the peaceful Bedouin village. In response, Sabah was informed that Commander Fox ordered his weapon be confiscated. Sabah’s farm has been subject to a long string of attacks, including an assault on one of its shepherds, and a ramming attempt.
The farmers accuse Fox of collaborating with Israel’s extreme left to force Jewish landowners off their land. The central command commander has not been a friend of the settlement enterprise, to put it politely, and on occasion was banned from making a shiva call to the families of victims of terror who died under his supervision.
Fox, 54, was appointed to his post as the final arbiter of Jewish lives in the liberated territories after a two-year stint as the military attaché of the Israeli mission in the US. He grew up in a religious-Zionist home and was educated in a Haredi yeshiva, but in the early 1990s, while struggling to enroll in the IDF officers’ school, Fox abandoned his family’s tradition. The documentary “To Be an Officer” follows his trepidations as he moves from one culture to another.
