Three soldiers pounce on a shepherd sitting outside his sheep pen. They knock him over and then one of them shoots him to death at point-blank range. Fakher Jaber, a father of four, was suspected of involvement in an incident that probably never happened
On the last day of his life, two and a half weeks ago, the shepherd and his wife got up at 5:30 A.M., as usual, and immediately went out together to milk the ewes. With their flock of 120 sheep, their work is never done. Maryam recalls now that they didn’t manage to eat breakfast before the daily Ramadan fast began. After about two hours they finished milking. Fakher took the sheep out to graze and she began to make cheese from the milk, which they sell in Nablus to help make their living.
After he returned the sheep to their pen, Fakher sat down near it, removed the Quran from his pocket and began to read from it. Maryam finished making dinner. She remembers that everything was normal and relatively peaceful that afternoon, in this beleaguered community, living under the constant threat of invasions by settlers. Suddenly Maryam heard shouting. She rushed outside and saw three Israelis in uniform yelling at and wrestling with her husband. One of the men was masked, which led her to believe that they were settlers – of the type that frequently assault the shepherding communities, graze their livestock on the residents’ lands and water their flocks from their wells.
Sadly, until the IDF starts investigating and prosecuting their members for war crimes (and stops assigning people without the required education, skills and psychological traits to essentially do police duties) - some parts of the IDF will continue to perform the role of recruiting Palestinians into extremist and militant organizations. :(
I would not be surprised if one of the dead man’s relatives decides at some point to take up weapons.
You’re not a “settler” if you’re settling land that somebody already lives on. You’re an invader.
Is there anything in Jewish religious texts about shepherds tending flocks as an analogy for their version of god and followers like Christians have? Murdering a literal shepherd tending his flock while reading his version of a bible is off the charts I think. Not that anyone uses religion for anything other than justification for whatever awfulness they’re engaging in.
But everything is off the charts these days.
From the article…
There were two bullet holes in his chest and one near his groin.
Am I reading that right, did they actually try to shoot his penis?
Also from the article…
Three days after Fakher’s killing, three other shepherds from the same community were arrested on suspicion of assaulting a settler. They are still in custody.
Hamas beheaded babies and set entire civilian families on fire.
Hamas beheaded babies and set entire civilian families on fire.
How does the atrocities of Hamas relate to the murder of a Palestinian shepherd?
I’ll pretend this is an honest inquiry.
They relate, directly, because what is happening now is that Israel is attempting to eradicate and eliminate Hamas, once and for all.
The problems people have with “proportionality” collapse under any scrutiny… Should the US have stopped attacking Japan once we reached the total number of servicemen killed at Pearl Harbor? Or the allies stop once a “proportionate” number of Germans had died?
No, obviously, because these were enemies openly dedicated to taking over and/or wiping out whole populations. Were innocent civilians killed in the process? Certainly. Is Hamas deliberately seeing to it that civilians are used as defense and propaganda sacrificial la,bs? Unquestionably.
Finally, Hamas could end hostilities today by returning all hostages and surrendering its leaders to an international court. But the PR game is wildly successful, especially among this crowd, so why would they ever?
Hamas could end hostilities today by returning all hostages and surrendering its leaders to an international court.
there is no reason to believe that. the wall would still be there. palestinians would still be subject to arrest and imprisonment without trial. they would still suffer under a blockade.
the hostilities have never ended since 1947.
According to your logic it’s perfectly fine to kill innocent people, civilians, kids, starve them to death, destroy their homes and infrastructure, destroy all their hospitals, occupy them and create from their land a wasteland? Is this what you want to tell me. And if you seriously think so I can only feel sorry for you.
None of that relates to this murder as based on the description of settler concerns, which are more of an issue in the West Bank rather than Gaza, I’m guessing that this happened in the West Bank. (Where Hamas is not the government.)
Whether the murderers are IDF or settler militants is immaterial to the point of this being an unjustified killing of a Palestinian shepherd living in the West Bank, who is rather unlikely to be a Hamas fighter or involved in the 7th October attack.
