1994 MASSACRE PROTEST IN HEBRON LEAVES 13 PALESTINIANS INJURED
Jerusalem, 23 Rabiul Akhir 1435/23 February 2014 (MINA) – At least 13 Palestinians were injured and five detained after Israeli forces violently dispersed protests in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, a West Bank-based news agency said.
The clashes followed protests called by Youths against Settlements group to demand the re-opening of Shuhada Street, a major Hebron thoroughfare closed to Palestinians by Israeli forces since 1994, Ma’an News Agency reported.
An AFP correspondent said about 1,000 Palestinians joined by Israeli and international activists marched from the Ali mosque to a flashpoint Israeli military post on Shuhada Street, chanting “Stop occupation” and “No occupation, no settlements.”
A dozen marchers were wounded in clashes by rubber-coated bullets, medical sources said. Three more suffered from tear gas inhalation but did not need hospital treatment, ALRAY, Palestinian Media Agency quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
Shuhada Street was partially closed to Palestinians after Jewish extremist Baruch Goldstein, a doctor from the nearby Kiryat Arba settlement, gunned down 29 Muslim worshippers at the Ibrahimi mosque, on February 25, 1994.
Six years later, at the outset of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, the army declared it a “closed military zone,” restricting Palestinian access to residents of the immediate area, on foot only.
On February 25, 1994, during the holy month of Ramadan, fanatic Baruch Goldstein shot dead 29 out of the 400-500 Palestinian worshippers inside the mosque and wounded some 150 before his victims subdued and beat him to death.
In the civil rage that followed the massacre, Israeli occupation soldiers killed more than 20 Palestinians and wounded hundreds of others, increasing the death toll to 49.
The Ibrahimi Mosque massacre well reflected a Zionist extremism.
Despite the Palestinian Authority renouncing armed resistance and claim to 78% of historic Palestine, signing Oslo Accords, Israel’s right wing, including Goldstein, had not rested a while, assassinating then Israel’s prime minister Rabin in 1995, who even rejected a Palestinian state or a freeze to settlement building. (T/E01/IR)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
