Amos Harel, Ha'aretz Military Correspondent stated today: "What happened in Hebron on Friday night was not a "massacre," as claimed by the spokespeople, nor was it an attack on "peaceful Jewish worshippers" returning from prayers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs. The attack actually began several minutes after all of the worshippers had already returned safely to Kiryat Arba. The twelve Israeli casualties in Hebron were not murdered in the same fashion that residents of Kibbutz Metzer were, nor did they die in the same manner in which young settlers were murdered in Hermesh. Those killed Friday were killed in combat. All of the victims were armed fighters, who were more or less trainedAnd as Israeli journalist Shraga Elamsomeone pointed out, if Israel is willing to call this a massacre, then how can they deny Jenin as a massacre." http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=231578&displayTyp eCd=1&sideCd=1&contrassID=2
As was noted by another Israeli journalist, Shraga Elam today: "Netanyahu's PR campaign was a major blunder: By calling the Palestinian ambush a 'massacre,' he automatically upgraded Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. If the Palestinian attack in Hebron is a 'massacre,' then for sure the Israeli operation against the refugee camp in Jenin is all the more a massacre. " http://www.indymedia.org.il/imc/israel/webcast/42373.html
Finally, here is some background to the Hebron situation from Hans Lebrecht, who lives in Kibbutz Beit-Oren, published today: http://www.indymedia.org.il/imc/israel/webcast/42431.html
"The establishment of the Jewish presence in Hebron has its own history. In Hebron, or in Arabic El-Khalil, the "Cave of the Patriarchs" is situated, the site that according to the Jewish as well the Arab-Islamic mythology (a saga told in the bible), the common biblical Patriarch Abraham, alias Ibrahim, and his wife Sarah are said to have been buried. At this cave, a Mosque, as well as a Synagogue are held as holy sites for believers of both religions. Until 1929, Arab Palestinians and Jews had been living side be side in this town. But then, an instigated crowd of Islam fundamentalists perpetrated a bloody pogrom among the Jewish residents, killing 49 of the 700 Hebron Jews, and wounding dozens more. Most of the Jewish community had been saved by their Arab neighbors, and left the town successively. On the Passah spring holiday of 1968, after El-Khalil-Hebron had been occupied by Israel in June of the previous year, a small group of Ultras, led by their Rabbi Levinger, seized a hotel and proclaimed the "Town of the Patriarchs" to be settled again by Jews, while the indigenous Palestinian "foreigners" should leave. The then Israeli (Labor) government declared the Levinger "settlers'" acclamation to be illegal, but then gave in to the right-wing and clerical opposition, and allowed these provocative elements to establish their headquarters in the former Hadassah hospital compound near the Patriarch Cave. Moreover, the then Labor government, as a compromise with the "messianic-fundamentalist settler" gang allowed them to set up the Kiryat-Arba settlement on confiscated Palestinian land at the outskirts of Hebron. Utilizing the compromising Labor government, the well-armed Levinger gang seized ever more houses and stalls from Palestinian neighbors, claiming their houses had allegedly been before 1929 "Jewish houses". In this way the present-day most provocative fundamentalist Jewish "settlement" in the city was established. Kiryat-Arba developed into a locality of about 5,000 inhabitants, among which the majority belong to the racist (U.S. Jewish initiated and supported) Kahane gang jand other ultra-right political scene. The place became ill-famed by the 1995 massacre, when one of its residents, an Israeli army Captain, Baruch Goldstein, clad in his uniform, emptied several magazines of his submachine gun at the backs of praying Palestinians inside the Patriarch Mosque, killing 29 of the worshippers and wounding several dozens more, before he himself was killed by a Moslem guard. His "Martyr's Grave" at a special plaza in Kiryat-Arba became a site for pilgrimage for the ultra-fundamentalist elements from the U.S. and Israeli colonialist Kahane gangs.
Now, in the wake of last Friday's bloody event, a group of Kiryat-Arba settlers, most of them belonging to the Kahane Hay gang, have set up an "outpost" tent encampment at the site of the incident. They demand that all the Palestinian houses along that road should be eliminated and the road to be broadened and become a fortified "security promenade", connecting Kiryat-Arba with the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. PM Sharon was quick to visit the gang and promising them, he would comply with their demands and sponsor a speedy execution of them. The first houses along that road had been already destroyed. According to this newest outraged designs of the Sharon cabinet and occupation army command, from the hitherto 20,000 Palestinian residents of the Israeli occupied area only about 4,000 might be allowed to remain. The others would be expelled either into the Palestinian administrated parts of the city, added to the 150.000 Palestinians residing there, or to be "transferred" somewhere else."