Originally published on Arutz 7 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/232515
100 Gush Etzion residents protest funeral procession held for terrorist who carried out ramming attack last week.
Approximately one hundred residents of the area along with members of Women in Green came to the Amos Junction (the T intersection) in east Gush Etzion on Friday to demonstrate and protest the ramming attack that occurred at the place earlier in the week and the funeral procession that they held for him in the Palestinian Authority.
Although the terrorist who carried out the attack was killed by IDF forces, the Defense Ministry returned his body to his family and a huge, noisy funeral was held for him accompanied by a “victory demonstration”. The army allowed the funeral procession while preventing movement of Jews on the main artery in Gush Etzion.
The head of Gush Etzion Council, Shlomo Ne’eman, was also present at the protest event, stating: “Self-sacrifice is what will determine the fate of this place. The People of Israel has sacrificed itself and continues to sacrifice itself every day. There is no price for this. We determine facts without prices, and the fact is that we are here forever and in order to realize this ‘forever’ we must translate it into the Israeli flag being hoisted high. The state must raise her flag and say once and for all that this territory belongs to us. We have planned our lives here as a sovereign state in a sovereign territory ever since Joshua bin Nun entered the Land. We are here forever and must be the sovereign here.”
The heads of the Women in Green movement, who organized the vigil, Yehudit Katsover and Nadia Matar, stated that the military force that eliminated the terrorist acted correctly and professionally as is required of it, but the political level, headed by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, allowed the return of the terrorist’s body, a violation of the decision of the Security Cabinet at the beginning of January 2017.
Yehudit Katsover spoke at the event, noting that while Hamas holds the bodies of Staff Sergeant Oron Shaul, z”l and Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, z”l, the Israeli government demonstrates weakness when it returns a terrorist’s body to his family. “We must join the call of the families of Shaul and Goldin for a change in the equation. Holding the bodies of our soldiers must be a burden and not an asset for Hamas.”
In addition, the two women stated that only the application of Israeli sovereignty over the entire territory is what will eliminate the hopes of the terrorists to remove the People of Israel from its Land, a hope that is the wind in the sails of terror. “Sovereignty will make clear our intentions to remain here forever and it will uproot terror from the root.”
Women in Green reported that a senior military figure communicated to the heads of the movement saying that the army intends to reconsider the policy that allowed the Arab demonstration accompanying the terrorist’s funeral.