Around 3 PM, Thursday, a shot was fired at the Judea and Samaria coordinator of the Regavim movement, Moshe Shmueli, who was touring the area C section of the Kiryat Arba near Hebron, together with a representative of the local council, and was documenting an illegal Arab takeover of parts of Area C.
The event ended without casualties. The coordinator alerted Israeli security forces who are now scanning the area in search of the terrorists.
The tour dealt with documenting a new phenomenon in area C, which on paper is under Israeli military and civilian rule: PA Arabs are grabbing Israeli lands by establishing Muslim cemeteries there. This is part of an ongoing PA Arab effort to forge a contiguous Arab settlement from upper Galilea down to the Negev, via the Israeli Arab triangle, Samaria, and Judea. As we reported in our “man of the year” story on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the size of Arab-held lands west of the Jordan River is already larger than the Arab state envisioned by the UN 1947 Partition Plan.
The establishment of cemeteries on open lands in Area C is part of the massive PA Arab takeover of area C and the suffocation of Jewish settlements.
“Fortunately, we were not hurt,” said Shmueli but we witnessed up close how the campaign over Area C, which we have been warning about for years, turns smoothly from shovels and concrete mixers into live fire.”
A Regavim spokesperson told The Jewish Press that investigators found 7.62mm shells at the source of the shooting, suggesting a Kalashnikov rifle was used.
The head of Kiryat Arba Hebron Council Eliyahu Liebman said: “It’s a step up in terrorism in Judea and Samaria, which we’re experiencing day after day. We demand that the defense minister and the Israeli government restore the deterrence and eliminate the terrorists before they leave or on their way to carry out an attack, and not only after they have attacked and claimed the lives of our civilians.”
