PALESTINIANS ON STRIKE COMMEMORATE 20 YEARS IBRAHIMI MASSACRE
Hebron, 23 Rabiul Akhir 1435/23 February 2014 (MINA) – An estimated 2000 Palestinians took to the streets of Hebron in one of a series of events to commemorate 20 years since the massacre in Ibrahimi mosque.
The protest was also part of the ‘Open Shuhada Street’ popular resistance campaign which began in 2008. A heavy Israeli military presence violently suppressed the event with percussion grenades, tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets. Middle East Monitor (MEMO) reported as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) Sunday.
In the aftermath of the massacre the mosque was divided by the Israeli military, giving more than half of it to the Israeli settlers for use as a synagogue. A large area around the mosque was officially labelled ‘H2’ and placed under full Israeli control for use by the settlers. This area included the once thriving Shuhada Street (Street of the Martyrs).
On February 25th 1994, an Israeli settler named Baruch Goldstein walked into Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron and opened fire on worshippers as they prayed during Ramadan. Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinians and injured more than 120 inside the mosque.
He was eventually overpowered and beaten to death. Following the massacre, more Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers in the city including outside a hospital as they went to donate blood and also in the cemetery as people went to bury the martyrs. An estimated 200-250 Palestinians were injured throughout the course of the day.
Baruch Kopel Goldstein was an American-born Israeli physician and mass murderer who perpetrated the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in the city of Hebron, killing 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounding another 125.
The Israeli government condemned the massacre and responded by arresting followers of Meir Kahane, forbidding certain settlers from entering Arab towns and demanding that those settlers turn in their army-issued rifles.
Goldstein was denounced by mainstream Orthodox Judaism and was widely described as insane by Israelis. Goldstein’s gravesite became a pilgrimage site for Jewish extremists. In 1999, after the passing of Israeli legislation outlawing monuments to terrorists, the Israeli army dismantled the shrine that had been built to Goldstein at the site of his interment. (T/P04 /E01)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
