Palestinian terrorists badly damaged a sacred Jewish and Christian site in the West Bank of Israel amid clashes over a string of dangerous Arab and Palestinian strikes in Israel, officials claimed Sunday.
Concerning 100 Palestinians marched towards Joseph’s Tomb in the city of Nablus late Saturday and also torched it prior to they were distributed, Israeli armed forces spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ran Kochav told Israeli Army Radio.
Photos showed components of the burial place charred and smashed, as well as damages to a light fixture hanging over it, a water tank and an electrical closet, the Jerusalem Post reported.
“We will not accept this kind of an attack on a place that is holy to us, particularly on the eve of Passover,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said. “We will reach the rioters. Of course, we will make sure to rebuild what they destroyed, as we always do.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid likewise condemned the destruction of the divine site.
“Attacking holy sites is attacking the heart of a people,” Lapid tweeted. “We will bring the perpetrators to justice and repair Joseph’s Tomb.”
Attacking holy sites is attacking the heart of a people. The Palestinians who laid waste to Joseph’s Tomb seek to sow destruction and devastation during a holy festival. This is serious damage not only to the tomb itself, but to the deeply-held feelings of the Jewish people.
— יאיר לפיד – Yair Lapid🟠 (@yairlapid) April 10, 2022
Protection Minister Benny Gantz called the damages “extremely serious” and claimed he “sent out a ‘sharp message’ to the Palestinian Authority concerning it.”
There was no prompt remark from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s office.
Jews believe the burial place is where the Biblical patriarch Joseph is hidden, while Muslims claim it is the major site of a sheikh. The tomb is in the hands of the Palestinian Authority, Jewish worshippers are escorted to the site numerous times a year under the control of Palestinian security forces.
The attack on the burial place came amid objections after a terrorist from Palestine opened fire in Tel Aviv on Thursday, eliminating 3 individuals and also injuring a number of others.
The casualties were amongst 14 individuals killed in the country since late March in a series of Arab and also Palestinian assaults, which consisted of a 27-year-old Palestinian male from the occupied West Bank fatally firing 5 individuals on a jampacked road in the Tel Aviv residential area of Bnei Brak.
More than 20 Palestinians, many of them armed militants, have been killed by Israeli forces since January.
Tensions have been escalating increasingly as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this year synchronizes with the Jewish high holy days of Passover.
