Leaders of Jews in Judea have announced an emergency gathering at El Hader junction Friday as Arab chutzpah mounts. Arab rock attacks against Jews have increased threefold in just over a year’s time, and firebomb attacks have increased fourfold, while the military itself has become a target, with soldiers ordered not to fire on the marauders in all but the most extreme circumstances.
The Head of the Etzion Bloc Council, Davidi Perl, the Head of the Efrat Council, Oded Revivi, the Head of the Kiryat Arba Council, Malachi Levinger, and the Head of the Betar Illit Council, Meir Rubinstein, jointly announced the emergency gathering.
“A reality in which the lives of civilians and soldiers are left undefended, and IDF soldiers are forced to undergo harm and humiliation that eliminate the deterrent force, is unbearable,” they wrote in an advertisment announcing the gathering.
Perl told Arutz Sheva that Jews refuse to be “cannon fodder,” as he put it. “It is time for te government to get up and do something that will defeat the terror on the roads. It is impossible that Jews who want to drive home will be like ducks in a shooting gallery. There must be resolute action and an iron fist against any rock-throwing event. The IDF’s deterrent force and the residents’ feeling of security must be brought back.”
Residents will not ignore the situation and go about their daily lives, he said. “We will not live under fire bombs and rocks for seven years now, like what happened in the South,” he said – in a reference to the time it took for the IDF to mount an effective action against Kassam rockets. “People are afraid to leave ther homes now.”
The change, he said, must be “dramatic, not cosmetic.” More forces need to be placed on the ground and rock throwers need to be distanced from the roads. The confrontation with them needs to take place “inside the villages and not on the roads.”
Two Jewish girls and three Israeli Arabs were slightly injured when Arabs threw rocks at cars on Highway 60 today, between Neveh Daniel and Jerusalem. The cars were damaged.
Police opened the road to vehicular traffic after sealing it off temporarily.
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