Middle East Monitor / September 6, 2019
Speaker of the Knesset, Yuli Adelstein, pledged to impose Israel’s sovereignty over the city of Hebron [Al-Khalil] (south of the West Bank).
He said in comments to the news website 0404: “Hebron’s time has come, and it is time to impose Israeli sovereignty over the city. It is time to increase the number of Jews in Hebron by thousands.”
Adelstein continued: “It is time for Hebron to be an Israeli city and even the mother of all Israeli cities.”
He added: “There is a lot to do in Hebron. Recovering houses in Hebron is an important task; however, the most important step is to extend Israel’s sovereignty over Hebron in the coming years.”
Adelstein asserted: “90 years after the events of 1929, we have to say with a clear voice that it is time for the Jewish quarter in Hebron to expand and multiply. It is time to make visits to the Cave of the Patriarchs easier, more comfortable and ordinary.”
On Wednesday evening, Adelstein stormed the city of Hebron and the area of the Ibrahimi Mosque in the occupied West Bank.
Hebrew media confirmed that the speaker of the Knesset stormed Hebron and the area of the Ibrahimi Mosque, following a similar raid by the Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.
Israel organised an event yesterday with the participation of senior Israeli figures, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to commemorate the murder of 67 Jewish people in Hebron in 1929, during the Buraq Uprising.
Netanyahu stated in a speech: “We are not strangers in Hebron, and we will stay here forever. I am proud that my government was the first to develop the city’s Jewish quarter program to build dozens of new housing units.”
Alongside a 220,000 Palestinians’ community living in Hebron, the Israeli occupation forces have established several outposts in the city, where some 800 Jewish settlers live under the heavy army protection.
