An Israeli rabbi identified in the article as Bentzi Gopstein called for burning mosques and churches in occupied Jerusalem to restrict non-Jewish activity. Separately, an Israeli died from wounds sustained in a stabbing near Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque three weeks earlier, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to assert that the site belonged to Israel and would remain so forever.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2, Gopstein called for burning mosques and churches in Jerusalem.
He said the Christian presence was unwelcome and that actions should reflect that view. He described Christianity as a form of idolatry and argued for combating it and obstructing its spread and religious practices in the city.
A Jewish academic described Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked as “neo-Nazi scum.”
Gopstein headed the far-right Lehava organization, accused of burning three Christian churches in Jerusalem, insulting and pursuing clergy, and restricting their movements.
The article said he called for churches to be burned alongside mosques and repeatedly expressed these racist views in Israeli television, radio, and press interviews.
An Israeli man died from injuries sustained on December 7 when a Palestinian stabbed him in the southern occupied West Bank. Israeli border police subsequently shot and killed the Palestinian.
Gennady Kaufman, 41, had been seriously injured and taken to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Hospital.
Palestinian sources said Israeli forces fired repeatedly at 21-year-old Ihab Fathi Maswadeh on suspicion of stabbing a settler. He was seriously wounded and left on the ground without treatment, they said, while the injured settler received care. Israeli sources at the time described the settler as forty years old and wounded in the upper body.
At a cabinet meeting yesterday, Netanyahu said those trying to remove Israelis from the Ibrahimi Mosque should know they had been there for around 4,000 years and would remain forever.
Israeli public radio carried his statement, made in response to Kaufman’s death.
Hebron, the West Bank’s largest city, had become a major confrontation point. More than 500 settlers lived behind army checkpoints and watchtowers among 200,000 Palestinians.
Palestinian Prisoners Club director Amjad Al-Najjar said arrests in Hebron were higher than in previous years. Documentation over the year recorded 1,500 people arrested, including children, women, young people, and the elderly. About 500 were children or minors, and twenty-five were women or girls, two of whom were injured.
He characterized the killing of forty-three Hebron residents by Israeli forces as extrajudicial execution and described it as the most dangerous trend.
Separately, Jewish Home Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked said she filed a police complaint against an academic who called her “neo-Nazi scum.” Hebrew University political science lecturer Dr. Ofer Cassif posted the description on Facebook, alleging that she had been an indirect partner in genocide in Africa and crimes against humanity and was responsible for turning Israel into a fascist state.
Cassif was responding to a post by Hebrew University pharmacology professor Amiram Goldblum. Goldblum wrote that Belgian Jewish businessman Serge Muller, who sold weapons to killers in Sierra Leone and drug gangs in Colombia, had donated to Shaked’s campaign in Jewish Home’s internal elections.
Muller also donated to Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan during Likud’s internal elections. Interpol arrested him in March on suspicion of drug and arms trafficking, as Israel’s Channel 2 reported in June.