Eli Rosenbaum, the spokesman for the town of Ateret, tells Israel National News about the events of the weekend that took place in the town, events that began on Thursday evening and reached their peak during the past Saturday and resulted in condemnation from the heads of the security establishment.
“On Thursday, the Arabs started rioting on Route 465, which crosses the Binyamin region from east to west. There was stone throwing, Molotov cocktails used, and tires burned, and the army contained the incident,” says Rosenbaum. The incident escalated until “at ten o’clock at night the road was blocked for three hours. Those who came from the west stopped in Neve Tsuf, the neighboring town until the road was opened because the army did not respond harshly. Instead of a heavy hand, they responded with rubber bullets and stun grenades, they came with a small force that was unable to repel a large number of people, and this was the result.”
“Thank God, there were no casualties, but many vehicles were hit by bottles, stones, and iron rods,” says Rosenbaum, noting that the village of Umm Safa from which the rioters left is “a village that knows how to throw stones, but it has usually been quiet in recent times.”
According to Rosenbaum, the cause of the entire incident, according to the Arabs of the village, was “four Jewish cattle herders who came to a farm located two kilometers west of the village. They grazed in the valley below the village, not on private lands.”

On Friday, the disturbances continued, but the army was much more prepared and reacted significantly and much more strongly. “On Saturday at noon, the muezzin called the residents to go out and slaughter the Jews. We have people who understand what he is saying. They also wrote it on the Jewish networks. At noon on Saturday, about forty Arabs came out of the village to attack those cattle herders with sticks, iron rods, and stones. The shepherds called out a few guys who arrived at the scene and repelled the attack, but it happened again, and later on, the shepherds call friends from the Hilltop Youth who came and repelled the next attack by the Arab rioters. They didn’t stop at repelling the attack and managed to enter the village, and they set fire to two houses and several cars there.”
“We condemn this thing. We are sure that it is forbidden halachically (according to Jewish law) and morally and also harms the security and image of the town,” Rosenbaum points out, adding that “in the end, this is what happened, and after they do this thing, they fled to Ateret and hid in different places in the town. On Saturday night, army forces arrived with the ISA, led by the Brigadier General. They went in to look for these guys, and this is a point that made us very angry because the same Brigadier General that reacted weakly and slowly to the attacks for three days, suddenly when Jews respond, that is serious and forbidden, all the forces arrive, and the Brigadier General himself is checking car after car personally to check that they didn’t run away. He did it personally.”
“Mr. Brigadier General, we love you and cherish you, but if you had acted as aggressively and searched for the terrorists in Umm Safa, this whole incident would not have happened,” says Rosenbaum, adding that “since the massacre at Eli Junction, there have been over 150 terrorist attacks in the Binyamin region. Why search for these few guys? What they did is very serious, but that’s why there are police to deal with it.”
“Later, the police tried to tow away the vehicles of those Hilltop Youth. We blocked the gate of the settlement to prevent the towing of the vehicles as a sign of protest and not because we support the act. It was a protest that our blood was spilled like water, and it doesn’t bother anyone, and when Jews do something, everyone comes running. We are not ready to accept this reality. We all serve in the army, and we are not ready to accept this indifference in the face of this bloodshed.”
Rosenbaum defines the check that the Brigadier General personally carried out for every vehicle that left the town as a humiliating and invasive check. Later on, the demonstration led by the settlement’s residents led to the closure of the town’s road completely. Either way, in Rosenbaum’s estimation, the Hilltop Youth who hid in the settlement found their way out of it a long time ago, although he can’t be certain.
Regarding the current situation, Rosenbaum says that “the army will reinforce the area of Ataret Umm Safa with a company of Golani. We congratulate and support them and hope that they will act harshly on the order of the Brigadier General. The Chief of Staff, the Commissioner, and the head of the ISA issued a statement condemning Jewish terrorism. We also condemn, but the time has come for them to take a hard hand against Arab terrorism and to stop containing it, to give freedom to the soldiers to stop terrorism. Don’t turn them into sitting ducks that take Molotov cocktails and bottles. The Defense Minister talks about the long arm of the IDF that will catch the terrorists. We don’t want a long hand but a hard hand,” Rosenbaum said.