A protest will be held on Thursday afternoon at 5:30pm at the entrance to PA (Palestinian Authority) –occupied Shechem, which is as close as Jews can come today to Kever Yosef. Organizers of the event explain the timing of the move, their response to the announced construction freeze throughout Yehuda and Shomron.

Ehud Barak ordered the retreat from Kever Yosef in 2000, and since then, despite the guarantees included in the lofty Oslo Agreement promises, to maintain and respect Jewish religious sites, and permit Jewish access, the Arabs have defiled the kever in every possible way, including setting the site ablaze many times.

On October 1, 2000, border policeman Madhat Yousef, 19, of Bet Jon, was killed while defending Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem. He bled to death over a four-hour period while IDF commanders attempted to negotiate permission from the PA to evacuate the badly wounded soldier to a hospital. Barak feared to give the order to permit soldiers to enter to extricate the gravely wounded soldier, preferring to permit him to bleed to death. Madhat was buried in the military section of the cemetery in the Druze village of Beit Jon.

(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)