The Jewish minority in Yemen has demanded the government to protect them or deport them from the country after a religious extremist killed one of them last Thursday – reported HERE on YWN.

“As long as the State is unable to protect us and secure us in our homeland, then, you buy our houses and properties and pay us the money and deport us from the country,” said   the rabbi, Yahya bin Yaish, brother of Mousa Yaish who was killed.

The rabbi has revealed abuses and assaults over the past few months against the Jewish community which forms only less than 500 people among the 22 million Yemeni populations.

“Over the past months we have been suffering from repeated assaults and threats, and although we have been reporting to the official concerned bodies and tribal chiefs but without success,” he said.

He accused “some local people headed by bodyguards of some influential officials” of committing such repeated “assaults, abuses, harassments” against the Jews in Raida and Kharef in Amran province, where about 400 people of the Jewish community lives.

The Ministry of Interior said Saturday it had arrested eight of these people accused of abusing the Jews.

“The assaults and threats reached the murder, like my brother who was cold bloodily killed in the market in the eyes and ears of all,” The rabbi said.

“They search us when we come and go, they search our visitors, and investigate with our guests, they sometimes attack our houses, beat us, and threaten our women with guns, and nobody rescued us from them, it seems that everybody is helpless to protect us from those assailants, or maybe it is organized assaults,” he added.

The former pilot, Abdul Azeez Hamoud Al Abdi, in his 40s, confessed to killing the Jew Mousa Yaish, without showing any kind of repentance over committing the crime, according to sources familiar to the investigations.

The sources said the perpetrator said he did that to “get closer to Allah” , and that he warned the Jews in writing one month ago. In his alleged letter he said to the Jews: You either convert to Islam, or leave the country, or face the sword.

However, Yahya bin Yaish, the rabbi, denied that they had received a letter from the perpetrator or any one else before the murder incident.

The sources also said the investigations have also shown that the perpetrator has traveled to Saudi Arabia and Lebanon during 2008 but without further information about the reasons behind the visits.

The perpetrator was fired from his work about four years ago for his extremism in dealing with others, the sources said.

The deputy director of the security in Amran province, Ahmed Al Suraihi, confirmed   that investigations have completed and the case will be referred to the prosecution over the coming two days.

In a related story, relatives of the victim from Israel, US, and Britain, have arrived in Yemen to participate in the funeral which will be held this week.  Two of his sisters were injured one of them seriously, in a car accident in their way from Raida to Amran on Friday after they arrived from Israel.

“Now, they in a hospital in Sana’a, and the funeral may be delayed until his sisters are recovered,” said one of the relatives who accompanied the two sisters to the hospital in Sana’a.

(Source: Yemen Observer)