A City Of Devastation: Hebron 20 Years After The Massacre
Streets for Jews only, shuttered stores, spitting, throwing stones and daily harassment by soldiers and settlers alike. Since terrorist Baruch Goldstein committed a massacre at the Cave of the Patriarchs 20 years ago today, the situation of Palestinians in Hebron has only deteriorated.
By Einat Fishbain / ‘The Hottest Place in Hell’
Nobody, not even Abraham himself could convince the Palestinians of Hebron that Baruch Goldstein — many of them insist on calling him “the doctor” and sometimes even “professor” — acted alone. Moaz Jaabari, who was an 11-year-old boy when his father was shot to death as he stood next to him in the Isaac Hall, describes how he saw “another Baruch Goldstein” bring the doctor another weapon as he shot in every which direction, and that two soldiers shot at the worshippers as they were fleeing the mosque.
“They took three bullets out of the sheikh’s stomach, each of a different type,” the tour guide swears, pointing at the sheikh who is climbing the stairs to the prayer space. Already in the first days after the shooting, the surviving worshipers testified about “another source of shooting.” “All of the Arabs know,” Abed el-Karim Jaabari, Moaz’s uncle. “He had another three people, two in uniform and one not. Three people walking around freely.”
Two soldiers who were guarding the eastern gate of the Cave of the Patriarchs testified about it to the Shamgar Commission that investigated the massacre: Goldstein entered the Cave carrying an M-16 in his hand, and another man arrived immediately afterward, carrying an IMI Galil assault rifle. All of the shooting in the Cave, according to the commission’s conclusions, came from Goldstein’s personal Galil rifle, which was taken from his hand after he was subdued and was found afterward covered in a blanket under a bookshelf holding Qurans. The soldiers must have been mistaken in their identification, the Shamgar Commission concluded, because “such an unknown gunman wasn’t discovered and wasn’t seen after the shooting.”
From the large number of casualties — 29 worshipers killed and another 125 wounded (500-600 if you ask the Palestinians), from the at least 108 shots that were fired in the Issac Hall — it is difficult to believe that this was the act of one man, and that, it seems is the main reason for the rampant rumors in Hebron to this day. “The shooting indicates an increased efficiency of firing capabilities,” the commission’s report states, an increased efficiency born of, among other things, the density of the crowd of worshippers, how fast the shots were fired, the short range of the shooting and the ricochet and continued impact of the bullets after they had already struck the worshippers.
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