The family traveled for Shabbat, the terrorist burned the house to the
ground
Yigal Amitai - Spokesman - Yitzhar - 052-4767065 amitayster@gmail.com
[Translation by IMRA]

13 September 2008

A new height was reached in the attack by the Arabs of Asira el-Kibliyeh
against the residents of Yitzhar. A terrorist entered the Shalhevet
neighborhood at dawn, burned a home to the ground, tried to break into an
additional home and knifed a child from the neighborhood.

Close to 06:30 a terrorist from the village entered the Shalhevet
neighborhood in Yitzhar, dressed in jeans and a black shirt. The soldier
posted at the position saw him, but says that he "didn't realize that it was
a terrorist." The terrorist broke into the home of the Ben Shlomo family,
which miraculously had gone for Shabbat to their parents in Rechovot. The
terrorist burned the four room home to the ground, destroying all the
belongings of the family of four.

The terrorist tried to break into the adjacent home of the Ofen family but
the door was locked. He tried to open a window of the home, but the mother,
Roital Ofer, saw him and struggled with him, thus preventing him from
entering. The terrorist saw a 9 year old boy on the street on his was to
the synagogue, and knifed him. The child struggled with him, but the
terrorist overwhelmed him and threw him down a nearby ravine of some five
meters depth.

This is the seventh arson incident in recent months carried out by the Arabs
of Asira against Yitzhar.

Despite this, neither the police nor the IDF has taken any significant step
to arrest the arsonists or deter them.

Instead of this, IDF Central Command chief, Major-General Gadi Shamni
decided only two weeks ago to remove one of the residents of the
neighborhood from his home because of the approaching Palestinian olive
harvest. "Unfortunately, the olives of the Arabs of Asira are more
important to General Shamni than the blood of a Jewish child."