Slippery Slope

The head of the Itamar Hesder Yeshiva, and former IDF Chief Rabbi, Avichai Rontzki, told a right-wing activist who informed him of his plan to attend a memorial service for the Fogel Family that he would make sure “that your hands and legs will be broken if you open your mouth against the IDF’s Head of Central Command.” (Ynetnews)

(Hebrew – Walla)

Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved in September construction plans for the expansion of the Itamar settlement by 538 housing units, which would see the settlement grow five-fold. (Haaretz)

(Hebrew – Haaretz)

Azaria Tena, a Golani brigade soldier from the settlement of Itamar, was arrested alongside two girls in suspicion of carrying out “Price Tag” attacks in the village of Lubban al-Sharqiya in the west bank. The three were recorded spraying “Muhammad is a pig” and “revenge”, and vandalizing bags of cement. Later on, a conflict erupted between them and the people of the village, and Tena threatened the Palestinians using his military rifle. He admitted to having carried out these actions.

(Hebrew)

A religious weekly bulletin, ”In love and faith”, distributed in hundreds of synagogues, published a picture of the Fogel family, murdered in the settlement of Itamar, but blurred the face of the mother of the family, Ruth Fogel, for modesty reasons.  The bulletin is published by the “Meir Institute”, which has a policy of refraining from publishing images of women.

A police woman from the Samaria division was reprimanded for slapping Amjad Awad, one of the murderers of a family of five in the Itamar settlement.

Security forces arrested six right-wing activists in the West Bank over suspicions they had been spying on Israel Defense Forces in the region. The arrests took place in Jerusalem as well as in West Bank settlements of Yitzhar, Itamar, Harsha, and Kiryat Arba.

A Palestinian vehicle driving through Kfar Etzion intersection on Saturday night was stoned by settlers, in retaliation for the dismantling of the Gal Aryeh outpost near Itamar.

(Hebrew)

Palestinians from the village of Aqraba claim that settlers from Itamar attacked them and even set two dogs at them, one of which bit the hand of one of the Palestinians.

(Hebrew)

According to Palestinian sources at Aqraba village near Nablus, two settlers attacked a Palestinian tractor driver near the Itamar settlement. The settlers set fire to the tractor after the driver escaped.

(Hebrew)

Itamar settlers reported that they smashed windows of a Palestinian vehicle and burnt it, after it was stopped by Israeli soldiers at the entrance to the settlement.

(Hebrew)