‘The IDF has lost control over the Hebron area’

The IDF has relinquished control over portions of Area C around the Hebron area, Kiryat Arba Council head Malachi Levinger told politicians at a parlor meeting between politicians and settlers on Thursday afternoon.

 

“Something has to change,” Levinger said as he sat in the living room of South Hebron Hills Regional Council head Yochai Damri in the Otniel settlement.

 

Along with several dozen area settlers, Levinger spoke with members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, who came to the area in the aftermath of two terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of Hallel Ariel, 13, and Rabbi Michael Mark, 47.

 

Ariel was stabbed to death on June 30 by a Palestinian teenager who broke into her bedroom and Mark was killed on July 1 by Palestinian gunmen on Route 60, outside Otniel. In January a Palestinian teenager infiltrated the Otniel settlement and killed a mother of six, Dafna Meir, in her home.

 

Levinger told the politicians that on the way on the meeting he had thought of the dozens of attacks that had occurred in the Kiryat Arba, Hebron and South Hebron Hills area since the wave of Palestinian violence against Israelis began in mid-September.

 

“The IDF has lost control over this area,” said Levinger, who urged the FADC to help restore security to the region.

 

Read More: ‘The IDF has lost control over the Hebron area’ – Arab-Israeli Conflict – Jerusalem Post