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Israel shocked as five settlers stabbed to death

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Five Israelis, a couple and their three children, were found stabbed to death in a West Bank settlement early Saturday morning, according to the Israeli army.

The perpetrator, or perpetrators, broke into the family's house late Friday night and attacked them in the Itamar settlement, about 70 km north of Jerusalem, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman told Xinhua. The parents and their three children, aged between several months and 11 were stabbed and killed.

"A terrorist entered a private home in the settlement Itamar, and brutally murdered five people, three children and two parents. The result is fatal," said Maj. Peter Lerner, spokesman for the Central Command, according to an IDF office release.

Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrachi, the head of Israeli army's Central Command, vowed to capture the attacker as soon as possible. "We're pursuing the perpetrators and I estimate that we will quickly capture them," he said. "We will capture the murderers and make them pay."

This is one of the most serious attack against settlers in years. The Israeli military and border police arrived at the scene after the incident and closed down the area to track down suspects. Other than inspecting cars at nearby crossings, soldiers employed unmanned aircraft to scour the field.

Muawia Kabha, a Magen David Adom rescue service paramedic who was the first to arrive at the scene, described the scene he encountered inside the victims' home. "As soon as I entered the home, I knew that this is a severe case that we would be handling, " he said. "In the first room, the parents' bedroom, we saw a father, mother and a month-old baby girl with multiple stab wounds. An initial examination of the victims showed they had no vital signs."

"I continued to the second room and found an 11-year-old boy in his bed. He, too, had severe stab marks and there was nothing that could be done to save him. In the third room I found a 3-year-old boy lying in his bed with several stab wounds ... two minutes later we had to announce him dead," Kabha said.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak strongly condemned the violence. "This is a very serious incident and my heart goes out to the family," he was quoted by The Jerusalem Post as saying. " The IDF will use any means possible to catch the murder culprits." Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has asked the Israeli delegation at the United Nations to submit a complaint over the attack.

Initial reports of local media said that the family's 12-year- old daughter returned home after the murder, and ran to neighbors for help with her two younger brothers, who escaped the attack hiding in another room. Danny Dayan, chairman of the settler organization Yesha Council, urged that the government and military should provide the settlers with more help and protection. "The time has come for the government to regain its senses and start backing up the settlement enterprise, which remains vulnerable on the frontlines, " Dayan said, according to the Post report.

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Original piece is http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-03/12/c_13775082.htm

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Speaking of self-respect just before Purim, and seeing as this thread of comments has gone on and on, I might as well add another point. I remember on Purim Day after the attack by Baruch Goldstein at the Cave of Machpela that PM Rabin said: "I am ashamed. As a Jew, I am ashamed." And I learned something very interesting. For Rabin, Judaism was only something to be ashamed of. Rabin never said: "I am proud. as a Jew, I am proud." Dennis Ross is quoted as having said that Rabin was the most secular Jew he (Ross) had ever met in Israel. Of course, there are many more like Rabin and much more militantly anti-Jewish. Dayan and Ben Gurion and more. So long as Jews won"t stand proud in their own homeland, their own historical towns and territories and also behave as Jews should, they will continue to invite attacks of all kinds, from terrorist attacks to media, political, cultural, trade, cyber and UN attacks. You are right, Jews need self respect. And Israelis need it more than other Jews. Have a Happy Purim!

Posted by Jake in Jerusalem on 2011-03-17 16:11:31 GMT

Anon has cooked his own goose. At the time of the massacres of Tel Aviv Jews by Yaffo Arab neighbors in the 1920"s, Hebron was a JEWISH city with a very, very long Jewish history. At that time, it was TEL AVIV that was a "settlement" and Hebron was the established Jewish area! So if you were born in Tel Aviv as a "settler", it is hypocritical and ludicrous of you to criticize Jews who live in Hevron, or elsewhere in Judea and Samaria. True to form, Arabs are still slaughtering their Jewish neighbors wherever and whenever they can, just as happened a few days ago in Itamar, just as they always have. Butchery! Anon"s criticism of "settlers" when he/she seems to be a veteran settler is hypocrisy at it"s finest! (This reminds me of the Socialist Laborites who ran Israel with vicious and shameless corruption for decades until Begin took power and moved them aside. Then the Charedi and Sephardi populations realized that they have electoral power and can play the same game. The Socialist Left accused the newcomers of being corrupt, but they were merely doing what the Leftists had been doing for decades! Hypocrisy reigns!) Bottom line: Jews in Itamar and everywhere else in Israel have every much a moral right to live where they do as "settlers" in Tel Aviv do. This hasn"t changed in the past century.

Posted by Jake in Jerusalem on 2011-03-17 10:18:14 GMT

Name or no name, the last thing I need is to get personal, after all, those who make such tall entries are not the ones who will defend the settlers, maintain the marbled duplexes with a view, and spend the cold winters on the roads of Judea protecting its subsidized population. For the last \"contributor\": I was born 3 blocks from the Trumpeldor Cemetary, and my father did guard duties on the Jaffa border at one time during the Meoraot. I also got to know most of the settlements and their residents. So, you can have Itamar with all its glory. You must know more.

Posted on 2011-03-16 21:45:24 GMT

Hey, Anon who has no name and hasn"t figured out how to enter some handle in the box marked "Your identity", Figure it out already! Furthermore, *I* comment here and I do indeed live in Israel. (Have a look at my "handle" and you"ll even see where I live.) As for the content of your last comment, it is getting too silly to take seriously. Of course it"s easier to stay safe in Tel Aviv-Yaffo than in Hevron. That is because you have overwhelmed the Arabs in Yaffo by sheer numbers (and fought them to the death). Do you remember that the Arabs of Yaffo used to massacre Jews in the "settlement" of Tel Aviv in the 1920"s? Have a look in the cemetery on Trumpeldor Street (which used to be the outskirts of town) and you will find mass graves of Jews who were slaughtered by their Arab neighbors on the same dates. By your logic, the Jews should have gone back to the much-friendlier Europe in the 1920"s where, according to your logic, they would have fared much better. Somehow, Anon Without A Name, you aren"t convincing. You want to ignore history at OUR risk. As for your complaint about "endless expansion", it is YOU who seem to be, as you indelicately put it, "clueless". The State of Israel is not expansionist, though it certainly has rights to control territory that is rightly theirs. This includes Jerusalem - all of it - which you may not agree with. It certainly includes those ancient areas and holy sites that have always been "Jewish". e.g. Hebron, and the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Face it: Arafat began his first Intifada to liberate "Palestine" on the Jordanian-occupied East Bank of Palestine. When that turned out to be too hard, he tried getting the West Bank. And he mostly succeeded there. And the Palis don"t try to hide their claim to all the rest of Israel, too. Including Haifa and even Tel Aviv. The WB and Gaza aren"t enough. If someone here is "expansionist", it is the insatiable Arabs, not Israel. As Begin said, Israel doesn"t want a single sq cm of Lebanon. But Israel does want peace. In ALL of Israel. Even if people like you want to foolishly give it up, as if you hadn"t yet learned that territorial concessions to date have not promoted peace at all... When you"ve figured out how to sign your name in a simple post, perhaps you"ll be able to learn from history, too...

Posted by Jake in Jerusalem on 2011-03-16 18:49:50 GMT

I am not sure who is Anon, because this is not my name, but it is clear that those who enter all these notes do not live or lived in Israel and therefore are clueless how it works. Yes, in the past Arabs entered parts of Israel to kill jews. Since the declaration of independene, theere were scores of gruesome attacks against innocent citizens, but Israel managed to defend its citizens better and is capable of doing so, much better within the Green Lines (what Israel was before June 1967. My message to most readers here is that those who wore uniform than and many of those who do today, are not seeing the benefit of the endless expansion and the costs associated with the never ending penetration deeper and deeper into the smallest concentrations of Arab population. I am not sure why it is so hard to grasp, but the resources are limited, the population is not friendly and the country cannot afford it.

Posted on 2011-03-16 14:52:08 GMT

The comments are starting to wander and should, at some stage, be closed. However a few points are still worth making. SOCIALISTS: The whole of Israeli politics has moved drastically to the left over the years. The early "socialists" who advanced the "settlements" were actually far to the right of where Likud is today. Golda Meir famously said that there is no such thing as a "Palestinian people". By contrast, PM Netanyahu now says that the "Palestinian nation" should live in their own homeland. "2 states for 2 people." The socialist Laborites today are even further to the left, way off on the unelectable fringe. (Incidentally "settlements" are actually Jewish villages; why aren"t Arab villages called "settlements"?) GUARD DUTY: As for "night duty in the W Bank", I actually accompanied someone on a cold winter night doing just that. Not pleasant. Have to drive around in the cold and dark, alone, checking the breaches in the fence to see if they are new (Arabs cut the fences regularly just to keep the guards busy; something like this happened in Itamar this past weekend so that the guard didn"t realize that the Arab murderers were already walking around inside the fence). And some of these guards have themselves been slaughtered, their guns taken from them. POLITICS: The Israeli political system is infamously ineffective. AFAIK Katsav was convicted without any actual evidence presented. It is still not clear to me what did or did not happen in that case. Some claim that he was framed for political reasons. Not unusual in Israeli politics. And the losers in Israeli politics don"t go away and retire; they keep coming back to do more damage. HaNegbi, Ramon, Barak, Sarid and many, many more. Not to mention the National Loser who has somehow become President. Just today he was still calling for Israel to make territorial concessions in an unstable Middle East, even as Jordan is joining Egypt in moving closer to Iran and becoming more hostile to Israel. Of course, Peres was GIVEN the presidency in a political deal to compensate for his NOT getting the presidency last time. Do you even know how the President is chosen in Israel? Back room deals among MKs. I don"t think that this is the right place to pursue these important topics, though...

Posted by Jake in Jerusalem on 2011-03-16 11:52:23 GMT

You can be irked even if you are not 80, sadly the elections in israel makes no difference because for those who are not familiar with Israel"s "settlements" history, it began under labor"s management,with the 1948 war hero Yigal Alon, the man who liberated jerusalem, and the plan is known as the "Alon Plan" (he was a "Socialist"), his boss Mme. Goldam meir, caved in and more new settlements appeared. During the "Golden Era" of another "Socialist", Prime Minister Rabin, more settlements cropped up, when he resigned, (his wife had a bank account in D.C, exposed by one of Ariel Sharon"s buddies from the media, died from cancer), Shimon Peress took charge (another "Socialist") and he could not stop the "momentum". He lost his power in May 1977 to Menahem Begin, shortly therafter, I went with the premier, to attend his proclamation that many more settlements will be erected, this was a distance of 25 minutes from ITAMAR...the rest is history....makes no difference, one cannot form a cabinet in Israel, being hostile to the nearly 1/2 million settlers.It is a mistake, began by Socialists, though knowing Begin personally, I have no doubt he would have hit the green light the moment the 1967 war was over.

Posted on 2011-03-16 06:34:29 GMT

TO THE SUPERSAGE WHO STARTS HIS COMMENT WITH "IF THEY ARE SUCH PATRIOTS", etc,. I will say that it is a shame I"m 80 and therefore over the hill for all intent and purpose, irked by the prevalent stupidity of the policies of the Israeli Fuhrers and the stupid people that time after time elect the same idiots, as their political system allows only dynosaurs to be postulated to the extent it looks like OBAMA"s system of finding the posts for the men instead of the men for the posts...and if you want proof, mind explaining to me how come corrupt KADIMA getting INDIVIDUALLY the highest number of Kneset parasites than any other political party ??? It is for me a pity that the biggest part of my immediate family made aliyah as otherwise, since most of you seem decided to go to hell, (which is where you are already headed), I couldn"t have cared less but....

Posted by jacob on 2011-03-15 13:38:52 GMT

if they are such patriots, why don t you, wise opinionators, make aliyah, join the IDF and serve in the West Bank to defend these settlers. It is easy to live in Australia or Britain and post vapid opinions about a situation one has no stake in. Which one of you is prepared to do night duty in the West Bank, carrying a machine gun in the winter nights, ready to answer the call?

Posted on 2011-03-15 13:08:49 GMT

I refuse to believe those living in ITAMAR or the likes are "Mesheguyem" but rather patriots and what happened is the fault of the rotten Israeli leadereship insistence upon living in good terms simultanously with GOD nad the Devil and foolishly beleving they will ever attain peace with these animals, no matter how abjectly they want to come down, BECAUSE THE ONLY LANGUAGE THEY"LL EVER UNDERSTAND IS THAT OF BRUTE FORCE AND UNLESS YOU TEACH THEM A LESSON THEY WILL REMEMBER ALL THE WAY TO THE SEVENTH GENERATION, ANYTHING ELSE IS A WASTE, THE ROAD TO HELL BEING PAVED, AS THE SAYING GOES, WITH GOOD INTENTIONS...!!! Knowing as nauseam that their only goal is the erasing of Israel and if possible ALL Jes as stated by NASRALLAH, why waste time with them. PLO"s lesder ABBAS is a "Peace Partner" to Israel.... Has the short memory of the Israeli leaders forgot that ABBAS"s Phd thesis at Moscow U was the "scientific" negation of the Holocaust ??? And this is for them a peace partner...

Posted by jacob on 2011-03-15 03:24:35 GMT

It is very comforting to have an opinion from so far away. Those israelis that are called to serve in reserve Duty, to guard the roads, the well being of the settlers are on a full tilt. It is a costly affair never born by the clever opinionators who can read a terrible story and inject themselves into a situation they know little about. The world is not what the so called supporters of Israel want it to be, this is a region of bloody entanglements going back 4000 years, and no amount of good will will change it. Therefore, it is better for those who do not want to participate in these national dramas, to remain in Israel This is not an excuse to kill children. Simply put, why be there?

Posted on 2011-03-15 00:55:55 GMT

One more point: "the self inflicted tragedy of the Jewish fanatics" sounds like the Loony Lefty Liberal Jews who have - repeatedly - brought self-destruction on their own communities. Under the careful tutelage of radical Ministers of Education from Meretz, young Israelis are stunningly ignorant of Jewish history. This is part of Ben Gurion"s militantly secularist legacy of trying to build a modern Israeli character that is not based on the "old Jew" of Europe and devoid of classical Jewish thinking and knowledge. This has produced IDF soldiers who are sent to guard the Cave of the Patriarchs and who have no idea at all of who is even buried there! This philosophy produced a PM Rabin who gave away Kever Rachel to Arafat, until MK Porush came crying to him, asking Rabin how he could possibly give away the remains and gravesite of "Mama Rochel" to Arafat? The Tel Aviv secularists who can transfer their wealth and entire virtual existence to NYC or Hong Kong with just a few phone calls are not the ones who are going to keep Israel running - especially when the going will get tough. As you say, "those who know Jewish history" really should understand better. History shows that Leftists neither learn from their mistakes nor admit to them. (If they do, they are then properly described as right-wingers... ask former Obama-voters.) In the end, the people in Itamar are PROTECTING the wealthy inhabitants of Tel Aviv, just as the people of Gush Katif (in Gaza) were doing the same. The Fogels were, indeed, evicted from their home in Gush Katif only to be killed in Itamar. It is folly to believe that this onslaught won"t ever get to Tel-Aviv. Los Angeles isn"t that far away, either.

Posted by Jake in Jerusalem on 2011-03-14 06:54:54 GMT

This is the essence of the highly corrosive Israeli internal debate - and it is built on politicking, ignorance and hatred. It is likely true that people who live in places like Itamar are strange radicals. How many other communities do you know have ARMORED school buses and ambulances??? Where else on the planet would evil neighbors even THINK of shooting at school buses and ambulances??? However, if Jews don"t belong in Itamar, then they don"t belong in Hevron, either - which was a very, very Jewish city since earliest Biblical times and until the ethnic cleansing of the 1920"s which killed or evicted EVERY LAST JEW. And if Jews don"t belong in Itamar or Hevron, the very same could be said about Jews living in Jerusalem. Indeed, the EU and President Hussein-Obama say precisely that! And then, radical leftist Tel Aviv Uni, which is built on the ruins of the Sheikh Munis neighborhood, should also be off-limits to Jews. The Warsaw Ghetto and the Pale of Settlement are logical next steps, "justified" by the precedents that some unnamed commenter here proposes. THEREFORE Jews must draw a line. Jews MUST RESERVE THEIR RIGHTS to live in a Jewish homeland. Anywhere in the Jewish homeland. If not here, then where? If not now, then when? If not the brave and good people of Itamar, then who?

Posted by Jake in Jerusalem on 2011-03-14 06:38:46 GMT

One should also admit that the most radical meshoogeners came to live in Itamar, I know it first hand from its early days, and they got worse. The most militant, lunatics of the setllers, making Kahane"s gangster Kach look like rank amateurs. Could this have happened of these good people went to live in some remote Moshav in the Galill? Israelis living within what was "the Green Line" are taken hostage by this fringe lunatics, and the entire country is no in mourning for those who for no good reason twice went to live in areas not known for wide Jewish residency before 1967. I, did not serve in uniform in 1967 so that this elemnt will build Netzarim (Gaza), than leave for Itamar. This is a country commiting Hara Kiri, thankfully, I am not there. Maybe the coming Tsunami or California earthquake will get me in Los Angeles. Every time I see the news on israeli T.V, I only say to myself, this is one thing I do not want to live through, the self inflicted tragedy of the Jewish fanatics, those who know Jewish history, can recount numerous times when they surfaced. It never ended well.

Posted on 2011-03-14 04:23:33 GMT

I have just seen some of the images. They are supposed to be at www.myisrael.org.il but it isn"t working for me right now. The images were also put up on Youtube but have been removed from there. Other users have copied images elsewhere onto Youtube so they can still be viewed. Go to Youtube and search for "Fogel Itamar" (the family name is Fogel and the place they lived and were murdered in is Itamar"). The (remaining) family has apparently authorized the distribution of photos so as to prevent a recurrence of such massacres. The funerals are being held in Jerusalem at this moment.

Posted by Jake in Jerusalem on 2011-03-13 11:30:55 GMT

YOUTUBE, FACEBOOK, etc,. are the symbol of what Israelis in particular and Jews in general have become with or without a Muslim "offer they can"t refuse" going out of their way not to offend Muslim "sensibilities" and proof of the pudding right here is that my comment about the inquiry made by Rep. KING about Muslim radicalization in the USA was most probably seen as "politically incorreect" by this publication"s censor. I say that these pictures must be broadcasted worldwide in the same fashion Judeophobes do to the falsehoods broadcasted by Arabs and various sets should be distributed in the UN... Let"s hear what the innocous Secretary General has to say

Posted by jacob on 2011-03-13 11:27:19 GMT

There is debate in Israel now on releasing the photos of the victims. The victims, including the 3-month old baby girl, had their throats slit. The media says that these images are not fit for publication. (I haven"t seen the images yet.) Some want the photos to go out to OUTSIDERS, i.e. those people elsewhere who criticize Israel so rashly. (Perhaps they should be sent directly to picture editors, columnists and politicians in various countries?) Some who support publication note that Arabs release real and fake images all the time and this has had a strong effect on public opinion (slanting it against Israel). The images were placed on Facebook and Youtube and got thousands of views but were removed by the site-owners following complaints from Arabs. Are they so "even-handed" with Arab photos and fauxtography? PS HaAretz newspaper was asked on Israel Radio why they only put the slaughter in Itamar on page 8. Page Eight! HaAretz columnist Aluf Benn explained that the events in Japan are a real tragedy while Itamar is routine local fare and that p. 8 was appropriate for this minor event. Cat stuck in tree. Radio interviewer Yaron Dekel accepted Benn"s explanation without further question. Pathetic... Know your enemy...

Posted by Jake in Jerusalem on 2011-03-13 10:59:18 GMT

Re. Photos of Fogel Family Murder Prayers for the Fogel Family again. These photos are extremely disturbing to look at but they are the truth. Homicide detectives, ambulance workers and morgue attendants have to deal with such scenes every day of their working life. Murder is the ultimate evil on the Planet. There is always a reason why murders occur. In this case however before an attempt at deconstruction is attempted here, prayers are required. It is possible to turn a serial killer into a doting grandfather but it requires certain modalities. Oversight is required. Chaos can be managed. We must attempt to “get on top” of the evil in the Holy Land. This act must not lead to a downward spiralling vortex of evil developing in the region. A new management team to be based in Jerusalem is required. In the face of true evil we must have faith in the ultimate stability, order, benevolence and expansiveness of the universe. I remember a story an old Jewish man told me about seven years ago. He said that as some Jews were being led into the gas chambers of Auschwitz they could still be heard praying for Moshiach and the ultimate redemption. I remember a story an old Jewish man at shul told me about seven years ago. He said that as some Jews were being led into the gas chambers of Auschwitz they could still be heard praying for Moshiach and the ultimate redemption.

Posted by Adam Neira on 2011-03-13 05:05:37 GMT

Prayers for the victims. The perpetrators of this evil attack must be hunted down like dogs and eliminated. Such an event taking place in the Holy Land defiles the whole region. Swift biblical justice of a Mosaic Law kind should be implemented. What is wrong with the death penalty for such crimes as murder, terrorism, rape and child sexual abuse ? It is not a schizophrenic application of the law for these people to be eliminated and for peacemaking efforts to continue. As more and more people are trying to build trust in the region the danger with such a heinous crime is that the process can be sabotaged. Evil must not be allowed to hold sway over the land. As Johnny Mercer sang in the dark days of 1942... "You"ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, hold onto the affirmative and don"t mess with Mr.In-Between !"

Posted by Adam Neira on 2011-03-13 02:55:52 GMT

The BBC article at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12721170 has as headline: Palestinian "kills five Israelis" in West Bank. Why is "kills five Israelis" in quotation marks?

Posted by Ralph on 2011-03-13 01:53:55 GMT

The words of the poor excuses for leaders ISRAEL has and their sable rattlings, elict only pity from anybody with at least a drop of blood in his veins If the animal/animals who commited this horrible and cowardly crime are ever captured, rest assured they will be vacationing at Israeli prisons, enjoying three Glatt Kosher meals a day while honing their murderous abilities and waiting for the next exchange of cutthroats for skeletons to which these poor excuses for leaders Israel has been suffering from day one are accustomed to pull, like that of freeing the bastard who killed a pregnant Jewish woman, her three little daughters and killed the smallest grabbing her by the feet and smashing her head against a rock... But not even dreaming of sentencing them to forced labor, breaking rocks in the Negev... RIGHT ?? You see, the first to oppose it would be Israel"s judicial dictatorship, its Supreme Court

Posted by jacob mandelblum on 2011-03-13 00:45:17 GMT

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