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Kever Yosef is a Jewish holy site that was supposed to be under Israeli control and open to worshippers as stated in previous agreements. However, the government has surrendered the area to Palestinian Authority control, and local Arabs have desecrated it several times.
The Breslov group was known to Palestinian Authority authorities as people who frequently prayed at Kever Yosef without any other intentions, according to Gershon Mesika, chairman of the Shomron (Samaria) Regional Council. He called the shooting attack a “massacre at close range."
The area was under Palestinian Control, it's illegal for Israelis to enter it, outside an Israeli military sanctioned and protected group. The Israeli military has reportedly shot at people who break this law.
The men shot were not part of such a group, and was illegally in Palestinian territories, true, Palestinian police might've possibly had the possibility to use less invasive means of moving the trespassers back, or detaining them, but considering the modus operandi established by the IDF, I don't see why they would.
There's no controversy here, illegal trespassers were shot in an armed conflict, it's unfortunate that such crimes of war, or in this case, maybe poor police work, is allowed to go on, but I don't think it warrants being called terrorism when the opposing force use white phosphorus bomb on women and children.
A formal announcement issued by the minister's bureau said that "Minister Limor Livnat is stunned by the murderous terror attack that killed her nephew, Ben-Yosef Livnat z"l, at Joseph's Tomb this morning."
"A young man whose sole purpose on the eve of the second Pesach holiday was to pray, was vilely murdered in cold blood, and left behind a wife and four orphans," she stated.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews regularly defy a military ban on entering the shrine, which is in Palestinian-controlled territory and is revered by Jews as the burial place of the biblical figure Joseph.
An Israeli military official said the army co-ordinated monthly visits to the site to allow authorised access, and that one such trip had happened two weeks ago, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
A Palestinian spokesman said no such arrangements had been made for the Israelis who were fired upon on Sunday.
A Palestinian policeman shot dead an Israeli and wounded four others after they entered a holy site in a West Bank city without permission on Sunday, the Israeli military said.
The group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish worshippers were shot at Joseph's Tomb, which some Jews believe to be the burial place of the biblical patriarch, in the Palestinian city of Nablus.
The man killed, Ben-Yosef Livnat, was in his mid-twenties and a nephew of Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party.
"An Israeli civilian was killed and four others injured after entering Joseph's Tomb in Nablus un-permitted," the military said in a statement in English.
The military said it had been notified by Palestinian officials that "the civilians were shot by a Palestinian policeman who, after identifying suspicious movements, fired in their direction."
Israeli and Palestinian security officials will meet to investigate the shooting, the statement said.
The governor of Nablus, Jibreen al-Bakri, said the group of Israelis had "entered the area without coordinating it with the Palestinian Authority, as is the understanding with Israel."
"We have detained the forces responsible for securing the area and are investigating what happened," Bakri told Reuters.
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After Sunday's incident, some settlers threw stones at Palestinian vehicles near the Hawara checkpoint close to Nablus, Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
The OP doesn't seem interested in discussing the topic, if so, what was the point in posting it?
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