Nadene Goldfoot
Terror attacks on Jews in Israel are not stopping. One happened yesterday when Aharon Cohen, age 71, from Kiryat Arba, was attacked and killed at the Gush Etzion Junction in Judah. He was a resident of the Judea-Samaria (West Bank) settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron, local authorities announce.
Judah's Gush Etzion Junction (Hebrew: צומת גוש עציון, romanized: Tzomet HaGush Etzion), also known simply as Gush Junction, is a 120-dunam (0.12 km2; 0.046 sq mi) business, commercial and tourism center in the southern West Bank, which serves as the entry point to the Gush Etzion bloc of settlements. It is administered by the Gush Etzion Regional Council. Long known as a "congenial meeting spot for Israelis and Palestinians," in the fall of 2015 the junction was the site of about ten Palestinian attacks against Israelis
Gush Etzion (Hebrew: גּוּשׁ עֶצְיוֹן, lit. Etzion Bloc) is a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains, directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank. The core group includes four Jewish agricultural villages that were founded in 1943–1947, and destroyed by the Arab Legion on May 13, 1948 in the 1948 Palestine war, in the Kfar Etzion massacre. The area was left outside of Israel with the 1949 armistice lines. These settlements were rebuilt after the 1967 Six-Day War, along with new communities that have expanded the area of the Etzion Bloc. As of 2011, Gush Etzion consisted of 22 settlements with a population of 70,000. They find themselves out of the area left for Jews. It had always been discussed with the government to one day have a trade off of land and they would be included.
Judah's Kiryat Arba or Qiryat Arba is an urban Israeli settlement on the outskirts of Hebron, in the southern Israeli-occupied West Bank. Founded in 1968, in 2023 it had a population of 7,572, slightly bigger than Gush Etzion. Hebron is mentioned. It is a very important city in Jewish history, and Jewish people have tried to get as close to it as they can. In the Bible it is also called Kiriath Arba, a city in the land of Judah. It is only 18 miles south of Jerusalem. It was Abraham, father of both Jews and Muslims, who bought a plot of land that held the Cave of Machpelah in order to bury his niece who also was his wife, Sarah. Today, a mosque stads on the site. Today, both must deal with this problem as Jews pray here.
The man murdered in the terror attack yesterday was Aharon Cohen, 71, from Kiryat Arba. The father of one of the 2 Palestinian terrorists who murdered Cohen and wounded 3 others and who were killed, praised his son for dying as a martyr and said that he had looked forward to such an event his whole life. Abraham and Sarah lived in about 1948 BCE.
The attack was carried out by two Palestinian assailants who accelerated their vehicle into people at the junction, before one got out and stabbed several victims, according to preliminary findings by the Israel Defense Forces. They were later identified by Palestinian officials as Imran al-Atrash and Walid Sabarneh, both 18. In the aftermath of the attack, several explosive devices were discovered in the vehicle and disarmed. Both terrorists were shot dead by security forces at the scene, the IDF and first responders said.
I note that Aharon Cohen had remained in Judah the whole time; lived in Judah and was killed in Judah. Judah was our last stand through the ages of our Israel, made up of the 12 lands of the 12 sons of Jacob. We Jews come from the land of Judah.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.thetorah.com/article/kiryat-arba-is-hebron-but-is-it
