Dear Family & Friends,

2 Hadars? Too much of a coincidence? Both our soldiers who were murdered by Arab Muslims in an unceasing War of Terror. They won’t return our soldiers’ bodies. Why are we returning theirs? We returned 10 bodies of Terrorists killed in their act of Terror. See the story about Hadar Goldin & Oron Shaul. Do you still wonder why I still call this the Gaza War Diary? Even if it is Day 586, it’s not ending soon. We will prevail BUT, only if we Fight to Win!!

So we gave the PA 10 of their murderers’ bodies back so their families could bury them – if they promised not to have a party??! Is this deterrence?

A few suggestions for effective deterrence before we despair of finding a ‘solution’, & NOT “The Final Solution”!!

1. Bury them in unmarked graves with no sign of identity. I like the idea of wrapping them in pig fat so they couldn’t ascend to Muslim heaven…but, who would I ask to kill the pigs & mess with the fat? Icky!! Or in Hebrew: Iksa!!!

2. If they violate our civil laws by Terror, take away their benefits from the Jewish State of Israel. Take away their parents’ rights; their children’s rights; their dogs’ rights.

3. Why are we paying them to stay?

4. Do we want/need them to pledge allegiance? NO! Because if they do, they won’t mean it. They will violate their pledge as soon as we weaken our resolve to survive.

5. You’all add to the list. Be creative. What do have to lose? The Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of our loved ones? We have Smartphones. We need Smart Counter Terror Tactics. Let’s have Conference to present/compete with the most effective Counter Terror Tactics.

It’s a moist night. Have a mazel day. All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x2/Mom

1.How the Western media & world leaders have Israeli blood on their hands. By Barry Shaw

2.Stop slandering hilltop youth & let Meir Ettinger go

1. How the Western media & world leaders have Israeli blood on their hands. By Barry Shaw

When people of sound minds display clear signs of deviation from reality it demands of us to examine the symptom and expose the defect.

For quite some time, Israelis and others that have clear-eyed views of the world have been increasingly troubled by leading influence and opinion makers who seem to have wandered off into some unvirtuous virtual world of their own.

From an Israeli perspective, it is a world where the roles of victim and aggressor have been flipped, where the language of legality and illegality has been switched, falsehood is promoted as news and truth goes missing.

Let’s begin at the top with the much criticized statements made by United Nations chief, Ban Ki Moon, about the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. When he said that “Nothing excuses terrorism,” this was simply a throat clearing exercise before going on to do just that, excuse Palestinian terrorism.

While Israel is enduring daily assaults by Palestinian terrorists for six months, the Secretary-General said about the murder of Israelis. “It is human nature,” he said, “to react to occupation…”

No, it is not “human nature” to grab a knife or a gun and go hunting for Israeli Jews to kill, including the targeting of young women and children, and for someone of Moon’s stature to say such things is appalling.

He claimed that Palestinians are provoked by “despair” when the truth is they are driven by the religious imperative and the hope of achieving fame and glory exhorted and incited by their corrupt leadership. It is not “occupation” that incites the violence. It is the continuous Palestinian terrorism and rejectionism that prolongs the “occupation.” How can it be otherwise, the Palestinians have constantly rejected offers of statehood since 1947 and beyond.

Wouldn’t it be more honest to admit that Palestinian terror is not about the absence of their state but the existence of the Jewish state?

Anyone remotely interested in truth can research what is actually said and written by Palestinian leaders to see this is correct. Yet, the anti-Israel campaigning ignores the facts and twists a narrative to suit a bias.

The facts are so clear and indisputable. Israel has not occupied another people’s land because the disputed territories never belonged to any other people. The facts are that the Jews are entitled to hold and settle the territories under spate of international laws and signed agreements including as a legally permitted defense against further aggression and belligerence.

The false narrative of a negative “occupation” has become so prevalent and widespread that it ignores or justifies horrendous bloody attacks against innocent Israeli Jews whose murders and injured are denied mention by much of the Western media as Palestinian terror is tippexed out of their headlines as it was recently by America’s CBS’s “3 Palestinians killed as daily violence grinds on.”

This appalling false storyline hid the truth that the three Palestinians attacked and killed a 19 year old girl, Hadar Cohen, and badly wounded another girl as they came into Jerusalem on a killing spree armed with knives, rifles and explosives.

It took four attempts, under growing social media protest, before CBS formulated a headline that almost matched what actually happened.

CBS is not alone. The BBC, Sky News, and other mainstream media outlets have been repeatedly guilty of untruthful reporting that regularly block out the fact that it is always Israeli Jews that are the target for Palestinian killers.

Why do they do this? Why is it that Jewish victims of Palestinian terror do not exist in the mind of many Western news editors? It is not just the expression “Islamic terrorist” that escapes the Western political and editorial truth test, it is also the words “Palestinian terror” that either cannot speak its name, or can be justified by blaming the victim, Israel.

They do it because this does not fit their mindless propaganda and imagery of Palestinian victimhood at the hands of Israelis.

They fail to adequately report, if they report at all, on the anti-Semitic nature of the incitement campaign that drives crazed minds to pick up a weapon and kill Jews. Editors and diplomats sanitize the Jew hatred and the Islamic exhortations for fear of outraging their readers, viewers, and constituents. This message would damage the progressive secularism of perceived values of human rights that has, for too long, placed the Palestinians as their poster-child idol of their global campaign of sympathy for the oppressed and downtrodden, an image that radically needs to be debunked.

It is appalling hypocritical how champions of the Palestinian cause, under the banner of human rights, turn their backs on the awful human rights record of the Palestinians as documented by the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights which received, in 2015, 292 complaints of torture, maltreatment and physical assault in the West Bank by the Palestinian Authority and 928 in the Gaza Strip at the hands of Palestinian Hamas.

Western media and the international community not only swerve mentioning the Israeli victims of Palestinian terror. They also fail to highlight these crimes inflicted by the Palestinian leadership on their own people. It doesn’t fit their agenda.

As such, they fail in their moral duty to inform and effect change.

When they deliberately ignore the heinous abuses of the Palestinians while, at the same time, foster their demands to pressure Israel and support the creation of a morally degenerate, abusive, corrupt, fractured and undemocratic regime, the Western media and the international community become tainted with the moral decay that is prevalent in much of the Middle East.

By covering up and supporting Palestinian deadly aims they have the blood of innocent Israelis on their hands as they aid and abet a malevolent and murderous Palestinian agenda.

Barry Shaw, Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy, Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. Author of the new book ‘BDS for IDIOTS.’

2.Stop slandering hilltop youth & let Meir Ettinger go by Robin Ticker

Another four weeks of detention without any criminal charges? What is going on here? (Note: an article by Meir Ettinger can be accessed below) Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com Mon, Feb. 8, 2016

Robin Ticker is an activist for Judea and Samaria living in Brooklyn. She co- chairs the Brooklyn AFSI chapter but, in her words, her spirit comes from Hevron.

Meir Ettinger, the grandson of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, Hy”d, has been on a hunger strike for over two weeks, during which time he lost consciousness. Ettinger is trying to bring attention to his unjust incarceration under the rule of administrative detention.

His six month detention recently expired, and Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon slapped him with another four months, without charging him with any crime. Meir is sitting in isolation in perhaps one of the highest security prisons in Israel, surrounded by Arab terrorists who threaten daily to kill him.

The government has not brought any charges against Meir. Since that is the case, one can only conclude that they just don’t like his world view and powerful writing (for an example of his writing, see next article.)

They justify his continued detention with a law called Administrative Detention.

There are so many beautiful things to say about the communities of Judea and Samaria, the same communities that nurtured the hilltop youth like Meir Ettinger.

It is crucial that we stop the slander of Meir Ettinger and the hilltop youth of Samaria. The situation has spiraled out of control into a situation resembling a blood libel.

This is a tactic used by those who oppose the philosophy of the Hilltop youth.

If the government creates an atmosphere of hatred and fear of these youth, they feel that they are not beholden to give them a fair and just trial. This kind of negative slander makes it easier for the courts and the Shabak to justify torture to obtain false confessions. It condones the continued incarceration of Meir Ettinger and others like him without accusing him of any crime.

It is incumbent upon us all to demand that Meir Ettinger be given a fair trial or released.

In the meanwhile, we need to counter the blood libel with truthful and positive speech, instead of bad-mouthing.

There are so many positive things to say about these youth, although some are anti-establishment and others did not find their places in our Religious Zionist school system. They are beautiful young people. They are idealistic. They love the land of Israel with all their heart and soul. They love the Torah and they love their fellow Jew. They are hardworking kids who have learned the professions of building construction, organic farming and shepherding. They lead wholesome, simple lives. Many of them have experienced serious trauma, being brutally thrown out of their homes by the government while living in Gush Katif and in the Shomron.

Currently, in the Shomron, they are subjected to Arab terror on a daily basis and on top of that, harassment by the Israeli Police. Instead of being appreciated for their idealism, they are being framed by the Shabak and slandered in the press as being “violent Jewish terrorists”.

The government has been lax about their security and the security of the nearby Jewish communities. Jews today residing in Judea and Samaria are in some respects treated as second class citizens living under military rule of law. They do not have the same rights as other Jews or even Arabs. Arabs build illegally yet in comparison, significantly fewer such homes are demolished.

Arab youth are engaged in a knife Intifada, they continuously throw rocks and firebombs as well as shoot at innocent Israelis, while Jews have been interrogated excessively and their weapons confiscated when they try to defend themselves.

Jewish Hilltop Youth live under terrible scrutiny, under constant surveillance, as if they were the ones who were perpetrating hundreds of terror attacks weekly. This treatment has alienated them from the mainstream. Their own rabbis and the government officials continually join the criticism, perhaps to avoid losing their own standing in the government. Their communities are infested with ISA agents, and many hilltop youth have been placed under house arrest, some incarcerated and tortured under administrative detention.

This surely doesn’t help these kids to trust or appreciate the establishment.

Meir Ettinger is a selfless Jew whose only concern is for the people of Israel. He loves Jews, he loves Torah and he loves Eretz Yisrael. He, as many of the settlers, wishes to actualize yearnings of the Jewish people for a government that is governed according to the Torah.

His ideology threatens those who have power and control over the settlers in Judea and Samaria and those whose power and influence would be diminished as a result of his views. Ideology is not necessarily action and if no illegal actions can be proven, why is he in jail?

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon recently ordered a continuation of Ettinger’s incarceration in administrative detention for another four months. In a deliberation that took place at the Central Court in Lod, Judge Avraham Tal postponed the decision until February 14 (Adar 1).

During the deliberation, Honenu Attorney Yuval Zemer, who is representing Ettinger, pleaded that the request to authorize the order be rejected, as the detention order was served to him only because of his views. Zemer claims that the State is attempting to re-educate Ettinger by means of detention and placing him in solitary confinement under harsh conditions.

“In the State of Israel in the year 2016, a man has sat in remand for half a year because his opinions are not acceptable to the law enforcement authorities in Israel,” said Honenu Attorney Yuval Zemer after the deliberation. “[The State] has requested that the remand be extended by four months, because after six months in remand, the “re-education” has not succeeded in changing his opinions.”

It is time to turn the tables and call a spade a spade. Branding hilltop youth as a terrorist group is nothing short of a blood libel. It is certain that our enemies, engaged in media warfare and hostile press, blow such libelous slander out of proportion and then, the “Jewish hilltop terrorists” persona morph into simply Israelis and then Jewish terrorists.

Israel then ponders why the world is slandering Israel with all kinds of lies and false reports of Palestinians living under constant terror under the “Israeli occupation.”

When will we comprehend that had we not fueled the false reports against the Hilltop Youth, it never would have mushroomed into a full grown blood libel against ourselves and the entire Jewish nation?

Bringing false testimony is one of the violations of the 10 commandments. Torturing someone to bring false testimony against himself is unconscionable.

Elisha Odess, 18, gave a false confession to a crime he did not commit because of torture by the Shabak. Amiram Ben Uliel, 21, emphasized that he confessed to make them stop torturing him.

Who will now take Shabak and the Defense Minister and the Courts to court for torturing, slandering and traumatizing innocent youth?

One could argue that we should just release the suspects and forget about it. But these are major crimes. Torturing and traumatizing innocent people should never be conveniently forgotten. It is imperative for the healing process of the victims that justice be served. It is equally important for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. They must be held accountable! This is vital if we are to live in a just democratic ethical society.

If Shabak behaved in such a cruel, despicable, illegal way to force suspects to confess to crimes that they did not commit under the legal umbrella and sanction of the Attorney General, we can logically assume that they have done so at other times.

Since reports of torture by the Shabak of innocent Jewish youth have become public, these branches of government have largely lost credibility and all their indictments are now suspect.

Why is this happening?

Netanyahu and Ya’alon as leaders of the Israeli government, are continuing to advance the Peace Process and are under intense International pressures to act against Israel’s better interests. In this process, Israel may feel that it must libel itself in order to come up with proof that Jewish terror exists among Jewish kids, and not only Arab kids.

This evidence is crucial because the Two State Solution is built on the premise that we are working with two civilized societies trying to establish peace. If you only have one civilized society and the other is clearly an uncivilized brutal society, where teens are committing acts of terror glorified by their culture, the foundation of the Two State Solution illusion will collapse like the Hamas tunnels.

Since the rampant murderous terror attacks upon Israeli civilians – by young Arabs – is not something one can hide, the second best option to balance the scale is to somehow show that neither society is very civilized and that they each have their terrorists.

So Israel has lumped the idealistic Jewish hilltop youth together for use as political scapegoats and pawns.

It is time to stop the libel. Stop the lies about our best youth. Stop the false labeling of our most idealistic youth as terrorists. Get real. There are no Jewish terrorist organizations and no comparison between cruel young Arab murderers and knifers and the Hilltop youth.

Stop slandering hilltop youth & let Meir Ettinger go by Robin Ticker

3.The Credo of the Hilltop Youth by Meir Ettinger

The credo of the “hilltop youth” is expressed in this article whose subject is the undercover police operation at Kochav Hashachar & the story of Elad Selah, an IDF soldier who has been jailed for alleged spying for the hilltop youth. Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com Published: Friday, May 29, 2015

Meir Ettinger, is a Jewish activist who is the grandson of Rabbi Meir Kahane, H”yd, and the unofficial leader of the hilltop youth. He sent this article to Arutz Sheva and we present it to readers so that his opinion is heard.

The Nationalist Crimes Unit was created three years ago by Tzipi Livni & graced with a huge budget. Its purpose was to eradicate nationalist crimes, i.e. actions of what are known as Jewish “rebels” who, for their part, feel that they are acting to prevent the further deterioration of the State of Israel.

The officials in this unit harass those they suspect and try to put as many as possible behind bars. They claim repeatedly (and inaccurately) that the Jewish activists hinder them from focusing on the major security problems on which they would prefer to focus, but it is they who decide to expend their energies that way.

Heading Tzipi Livni’s unit is a man who prefers to remain behind the scenes, but who must be exposed in order that we recognize what the face of what we see as modern day Jewish self-hatred is like. His name is Udi Levi, a man who has dedicated the past 15 years of his life to fighting Jewish settlement in the land of Israel and protecting our enemies.

When a Jew’s blood is spilled in a terror attack, they go from yeshiva to yeshiva, town to town, to insure that there will be no response, other than an op-ed column by a family member.
Many prefer to believe that the police and Israeli Security services do not really want to fight Israel’s own youth, and that the expulsions, harassments and arrests are done unwillingly for the good of the public. But two recent episodes – that of the IDF corporal Elad Selah (the soldier from Bat Ayin accused of ‘spying’ for revealing information to Jewish ‘settlers’) and most tellingly, the undercover operation in Kochav Hashachar (where police pretended to be Arabs encroaching on the town in order to provoke Jewish residents to confront them) should serve as a lesson. It is evidence of how much energy and effort the security services exert in order to thwart the desire to expand the ‘settlement’ movement. Incredible resources are also utilized to eliminate any effort that may encourage stronger responses to spilled Jewish blood.
For several years there had been an unspoken agreement between Jewish residents and the security services – the authorities would ignore new construction in Judea and Samaria as long as Jewish protests after terror attacks were muted. Unfortunately, most Jewish residents have not yet noticed that the rules of the game have changed. The establishment has made the hilltop youth and Jewish “settlers’ their major focus, escalating their actions to the point where it is a war against our very survival. This is why officials found it proper to destroy the “Chazon David” synagogue near Hevron on the same night Arabs perpetrated two terror attacks. It is also the reason they felt that the correct response to the run over murder of Shalom Cherki in Jerusalem by an Arab driver was to provoke the Jews in Kochav Hashachar and arrest them on the spot.

And then there is the story of Elad Selah. While this is not the first time a Jew has been accused of ‘spying’ on behalf of the ‘settlements’, it is the first time the security services have explicitly defined Jewish hilltop settlers as the ‘enemy.’ This was done matter of factly, without any uproar, as if declaring part of the Jewish population in Israel as an enemy is a light matter! The fact is that the security services have been acting for a long time now as if the main enemy of the State of Israel is Jewish children who move to the hills of Judea and Samaria (‘Hilltop Youth’) and that helping these youngsters is akin to treason.

It seems as though their raison d’être is to fight against us, Jews who dare aspire for a true Jewish state. The situation has become so dire that the security services leave no stone unturned to seek out such people. As part of their efforts, they meticulously plan how to prevent Jews from settling unauthorized hilltops. They go from hilltop to hilltop threatening new towns that they will destroy their homes unless they receive the proper paperwork from the Civil Administration and the Regional Councils. When a Jew’s blood is spilled in a terror attack, they go from yeshiva to yeshiva, town to town, to insure that there will be no response, other than an op-ed column by a family member.

A pure and righteous Jew is sitting in jail for helping his fellow righteous Jews. Has the Israeli establishment declared war on all idealists who dream and strive for the Jewish Redemption? Those who condemn Elad Selah and those who condemn the ‘radical’ Jews he helped are explicitly helping in this war against holy Jews.

One day following the murder of Shalom Cherki, Udi Levi decided it was time to fight what he seems to feel is the real enemy. A police officer dressed as an Arab along with an actual Arab shepherd, approached the hill of Ma’ale Shlomo and began screaming and cursing in the hopes of provoking Jewish residents to respond. Waiting to catch the resident in the act were dozens of police officers hiding a few hundred meters away.

What exactly did the police expect Jews to do when they saw Arabs approaching their town – call the police from the Nationalist Crimes Unit? Who can expect the police to chase the Arabs away, when it is they themselves who are bringing them to the area? Remember, Arabs scope out a town before plotting a terror attack as was the case with the Fogel family. Obviously Jewish residents will protect themselves and chase away the Arab encroachers. In any case, this unconscionable plot led to the arrest of five Jews for ‘attacking’ the Arab shepherd.

Though it may be clear to the vast majority of the nation that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people – to the police, the security services and the courts, sometimes one cannot help feeling that the opposite is clear. Can it be that the police couldn’t care less if an Arab seems to be threatening the lives of Jewish residents? What the town of Kochav HaShachar considers despicable provocations, the courts view as appropriate policy.

What is the answer? The Unit has declared us the enemy, preventing us from settling new hilltops, and is arresting us for defending ourselves. Must we give up on our dreams, give up on settling the land? Must we walk around in bulletproof vests since we are not allowed to protect ourselves and we cannot rely on the police?

We must ponder carefully these recent events and understand why the State is so frightened of what they term ‘nationalist crime.’ How is it that despite the fact that we want the best for our fellow Jews, we are somehow considered the ‘enemy’? There is much to write in regards to this question yet I would like to reflect on the arrest of Elad Selah and hopefully also answer the above questions.

The indictment of Elad Selah reminds me of what happened to me a few years ago when I was also accused of ‘spying’ and ‘treason’ for warning ‘settlers’ about impending evacuations of their hilltops. In the end, due to legal technicalities I was found guilty of the less serious charge of “gathering classified information”. The week I was interrogated for these charges was the same week we read the Torah parsha where Joseph accuses his brothers of arriving in Egypt to ‘spy’ and the brothers struggle to prove their sincerity. They say “kanim anachnu“, meaning “we are truthful people“. This strange story in the Torah, together with the exaggerated charges against me, along with the long hours I spent in interrogations led me to consider what G-d wanted of me and what He was hinting to me with this accusation of ‘treason.’

What is the difference between ‘spies’ and ‘truthful people’? To be a spy means to hide one’s true intentions while being part of an existing system. Another form of ‘spying’ is to participate in all sorts of activities, yet hide one’s true thoughts in order to succeed. In contrast, “truthful people” are those who state their true desires openly and work to advance them.

One can also relate to the Nationalist Unit in one of these two ways. Knowing that the interests of the Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria are not always in line with the interests of the Jewish residents, it is obvious that we cannot blindly rely on them.

This type of dilemma also faces us when we reach the army. Many join the army out of love for the country, but decide to only follow orders that coincide with the Torah position, hoping that by doing so they will be able to advance projects that are good for the Jewish people. But this is the way of a ‘spy’, for such a person is hiding his true intentions and goals. The second option is to be a “truthful person” – state openly that our goal is to live in all of Eretz Yisrael and that we are loyal first to Torah, even if it doesn’t always coincide with government policy as reflected in the army.

The story of Joseph teaches us to act like ‘like truthful people’ as opposed to spies. If Elad Selah is accused of spying, he must accuse those who arrested him of betraying their people.

When we behave like ‘spies’ – hiding our true intentions and that our loyalties lie with G-d, the Jews of Judea and Samaria and the Torah, then the authorities will view us as an enemy from within. The army correctly demands absolute obedience to its authority.

Our goal must be to act “like truthful people” (kanim anachnu) – to openly state our beliefs. We must declare unequivocally that we demand a Jewish State, and our foremost obedience is to G-d.

The Credo of the Hilltop Youth by Meir Ettinger

United Nations Building, New York City Photo Credit: Flash 90 4.Danon Helps Bereaved IDF Parents Lobby for MIA Soldiers at UN By: Hana Levi Julian Published: February 8th, 2016 The parents of IDF Lt. Hadar Goldin traveled to New York last week to appeal to the United Nations to help bring their son’s remains home for burial in Israel. They also lobbied on behalf of St. Sgt. Oron Shaul, whose body is similarly being held hostage by Gaza’s ruling Hamas terror organization.
Leah and Simcha Goldin were accompanied by Israel Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon on Friday to UN headquarters in New York.

“Hadar Goldin was killed during a cease-fire mediated by the international community. The UN must take responsibility & act against Hamas to return the bodies of Hadar & Oron to Israel for burial as soon as possible.”

They met with U.S. Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Edmond Mulet and asked his assistance to pressure Hamas to release the remains of their son and those of Oron Shaul. Both died during Operation Protective Edge in summer 2014.
While the Goldins were in New York asking for help to extract the bodies of Israeli soldiers from Gaza so they can be laid to rest, Israeli Arab Knesset member Ahmed Tibi was in Washington bad-mouthing his country. Tibi met with senior officials at the White House & State Department, slamming Israel’s government on the tab of the taxpayers who pay his generous salary & his airline tickets.

About the Author: Hana Levi Julian is a Middle East news analyst with a degree in Mass Communication and Journalism from Southern Connecticut State University. A past columnist with The Jewish Press and senior editor at Arutz 7, Ms. Julian has written for Babble.com, Chabad.org and other media outlets, in addition to her years working in broadcast journalism.

© 2016 The Jewish Press. All rights reserved. Printed from: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/danon-helps-bereaved-idf-parents-lobby-for-mia-soldiers-at-un/2016/02/08/

Holy books set on fire in Givat Sorek synagogue named after three Jewish teens who were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas in 2014 • Trail of evidence leads to nearby Palestinian village, prompting investigators to suspect Palestinian arsonists. IsraelHaYom.com

By Efrat Forsher, Yori Yalon and Shlomo Cesana

Suspected Palestinian arsonists set fire to holy books on Friday in a synagogue located in Givat Sorek, an outpost adjacent to the community of Carmei Tzur in the Gush Etzion region of Judea.

The Givat Sorek outpost was established atop a hill overlooking the site where three Jewish teens — Gil-ad Shaer, Naftali Frenkel and Eyal Yifrach — were kidnapped by Hamas operatives in the summer of 2014. The vandalized synagogue, comprising a prayer tent that housed the holy books, was named after the three boys, who were murdered soon after their abduction.

Investigators found a trail of evidence leading to the nearby Palestinian village of Halhul, prompting the authorities to conclude that Palestinian perpetrators were behind the arson attack.

President Reuven Rivlin described the sights from the scene of the arson attack as “heart-wrenching.”

“The affront to the sanctity of our people hurts even more when it happens in a place that commemorates those who were viciously murdered,” Rivlin added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a harsh response to the incident, writing on his Facebook page that “last night a synagogue in Givat Sorek, in Gush Etzion, was set on fire by Palestinians. We will prosecute the perpetrators of this crime. I expect the international community to condemn the desecration of a synagogue, an act that is the result of incessant Palestinian incitement.”

Education Minister Naftali Bennett also issued a response, saying, “This act crossed a line and we must not accept it.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely remarked, “The terrorists who carried out these acts seek to hurt us as Jews, no matter where we live in the land of Israel.”