Several dozen Jewish extremists in Hebron try to attack IDF’s top West Bank commander
Five suspects arrested for attempted assault on Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth and other soldiers securing annual pilgrimage, calling him a ‘traitor’
Several dozen Jewish extremists in Hebron for an annual pilgrimage tried to attack the head of the IDF Central Command Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, who the military said was in the flashpoint West Bank city on Friday to secure the gathering.
Five suspects were arrested by police after they chased Bluth and the soldiers accompanying him, calling the IDF commander a “traitor.” The head of Central Command typically has a fraught relationship with settler extremists, since the army is tasked with trying to keep them in check in the West Bank.
The IDF said that the group of young suspects chased Bluth and tried to block an exit that the military needed for operational activity.
No injuries were reported to Bluth or the soldiers with him.
After five suspects were arrested, the gathering of rioters was dispersed, the army said, adding that it strongly condemned the violence.
Each year, tens of thousands of Jewish worshippers visit Hebron to mark the yearly Torah reading of the biblical Abraham’s purchase of the site where the Tomb of the Patriarch sits to bury his wife, the matriarch Sarah. Successive years have seen Jewish rioters target Palestinian locals whose movement in the city is further restricted by the IDF to secure the area for the pilgrims.
There was no immediate comment on the attempted attack on Bluth from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or Defense Minister Israel Katz, the latter of whom earlier Friday announced an end to administrative detention orders for West Bank settlers, meaning Israel will now be using the controversial policy of holding suspects without charge only against Palestinian terror suspects.
The Shin Bet had reportedly warned against the move, with the security agency’s chief Ronen Bar saying in June that banning the measure against Israelis “will result in an immediate, severe and serious harm to the security of the state” in cases where there is clear information that a suspect may carry out a terror attack.
Administrative detention policies allow the Defense Ministry to hold suspects without charge, while administrative restraining orders bar them from visiting certain areas or communicating with certain people. The tool is typically used when authorities have intelligence tying a suspect to a crime but do not have enough evidence for charges to stand up in a court of law.
Settler violence has spiked since the October 7, 2023, Hamas onslaught in the south. Israeli authorities rarely arrest Jewish perpetrators in such attacks. Some rights groups lament that convictions are even more unusual and that the vast majority of charges in these types of attacks are dropped.
Bluth pledged “not [to] blink” in the face of settler violence when he took over in June as head of IDF Central Command, which oversees the West Bank. His successor, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, said at the time that while “the vast majority” of Israeli settlers in the West Bank are “moral, law-abiding citizens,” some were “adopting the ways of the enemy” and settler leaders weren’t denouncing this violence.
