Officials Investigating Arab Claims of Jewish Rock Attack

Shomron.

The Shin Bet and Israel Police are investigating an incident in which an Arab woman was killed when rocks were thrown at the vehicle she was riding in. The husband of 47-year- A’isha Rabi, who was killed in the incident, told police that his wife was killed from stones thrown by Jews from the hilltop along Road 60 in the Shomron.

An initial investigation has turned up no evidence to corroborate the husband’s claims, media reports said. The incident occurred Friday night after midnight, and Shin Bet sources told Channel 20 that it appeared very unlikely that three Jews in an area where nearly all Jewish residents were observant would be out that late on Leil Shabbos throwing rocks – but officials were not discounting any possibilities, the officials said, including the possibility that it was Arabs who threw the stones and mistakenly hit the vehicle.

An Israeli court issued a gag order on details of the inquiry.

Thousands attended the funeral for Rabi on Saturday in the village of Bidi’a. Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas called the incident “a most disgusting crime committed by settlers who are protected by the occupying power. This cannot go unpunished.” He was joined by Peace Now head Yariv Oppenheimer, who said that the woman was “killed by a rock thrown at her by settlers.”

Attorney Itamar Ben-Gvir criticized assigning the case to the Shin Bet, which, he said, has a history of unfairly accusing Jews of crimes they did not commit. “We need to remember that it is not yet clear if the claim that Jews committed this act is correct or another plot that is being brewed against Jews. Even if it is true, unfortunately there are dozens of cases in which Arabs threw rocks at Jews, and there is no Shin Bet investigation into those cases. Experience shows that the Jewish department of the Shin Bet aggressively questions ‘hilltop youth,’ preventing them from doing a true investigation and coming to the truth, but instead concentrating on false admissions.”

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