Remove rampaging settlers from all parts of Hebron

Remove the rampaging settlers from all parts of Hebron

The removal of the Hebron settlers' House of Pogrom is too little and too late. This house should have been evacuated weeks ago, instead of letting it become a focus of riots and pogroms. Indiscriminate attacks on and torching of Palestinian homes, desecration of mosques and Muslim cemeteries.

The evacuation of one house is far from enough. It was Defence Minster Ehud Barak, in his speech on the Rabin Square a month ago, who defined the concentrations of violent and racist settlers as cancer growths - but did not draw the obvious conclusions .

One of the worst and most dangerous of these growths is the settler enclave in Hebron, which is growing and developing and already caused the effective expulsion of tens of thousands of Palestinian Hebronites from the centre of their city.

The evacuation of the pogromist settlers from all parts of Hebron without exception is an entirely possible mission, not even a very difficult one, given only the political will and determination to carry it through - as today's events prove. When it came to the test, it turned out that the settlers holed up in the Pogrom House excelled mainly in cowardly racist attacks on the Palestinian inhabitants in their vicinity, under protection of the army.

The Gush Shalom movement demands that the government give full and immediate compensation to the Palestinian inhabitants targeted in the settler rampage, all those whose houses were torched and their property damaged.

"For the hurt caused to these inhabitants, the State of Israel is fully to blame. The Army, Border Guard and Police had large forces on the spot, which stood aside watching for hours and did nothing to stop the settler pogrom. The State of Israel must do at least the very bare minimum, which is to grant the Palestinian victims full and immediate compensation for the damage to their property" said an urgent message sent to the Minister of Defence.

ENDS

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