Murder of Eliyahu Asheri | |
---|---|
Native name | רצח אליהו אשרי |
Location | West Bank |
Date | June 25, 2006 |
Attack type | Kidnapping, Shooting attack |
Deaths | Eliyahu Asheri |
Perpetrator | Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility |
No. of participants | 3 |
The murder of Eliyahu Asheri was a terror attack which carried out on June 25, 2006, in which Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) militants kidnapped, and later murdered the 18-year-old Israeli settler and high school student Eliyahu Asheri. [1]
The attack occurred only a few hours after the capture of Corporal Gilad Shalit that led to Operation Summer Rains.
Eliyahu Asheri | |
---|---|
Born | |
Disappeared | 25 June 2006 (aged 18) on his way from Beitar Illit to Neveh Tzuf |
Died | 25 June 2006 18) | (aged
Cause of death | shot to death |
Body discovered | 29 June 2006 |
Nationality | Israeli |
Citizenship | Israeli |
Known for | Abducted and killed by PRC militants. |
Eliyahu Pinchas Asheri [2] (Hebrew : אליהו פנחסי אשר; February 2, 1988 – June 25, 2006) was an Israeli student from the settlement of Itamar, in the northern West Bank. He was a student at the religious pre-army Mechina (preparatory program) "Elisha" in Neveh Tzuf. [3] His father Yitro Asheri, originally from Adelaide, was converted by St Kilda's Rabbi Philip Heilbrunn in 1986. Yitro Asheri had moved from the Adelaide suburb of Glenelg to the Jewish centre of North Adelaide at the time of his conversion. About six months after his conversion he moved to Israel. He first settled in kibbutz Sde Eliyahu where he learned some Hebrew and later moved to a yeshiva headed by Rabbi Haim Druckman. The Asheri family were one of the founding members of Itamar and have lived there from 1991. [4] [5]
On Sunday, June 25, 2006, Eliyahu was kidnapped while on his way from Beitar Illit to Neveh Tzuf, northwest of Ramallah. [6]
On Tuesday, June 27, 2006, Eliyahu's father, Yitro Asheri, initially submitted a missing-person report about his son to the Ariel Police. According to Yitro he did not report his son's absence for two days because Eliyahu used to regularly disappear for extended periods in the past without keeping daily contact with his parents. [3] [7] Asheri was last seen on 9:00 pm Sunday night, after he left the home of a friend in Betar Illit [7] and was hitchhiking near the French Hill intersection of Jerusalem by one of his classmates. [3]
In addition, on Tuesday, the Palestinian militant group Popular Resistance Committees initially announced that the group has kidnapped a Jewish settler in the West Bank. [8] [9]
On Wednesday, June 28, Abu Abir, the spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, stated that Asheri would be "butchered in front of TV cameras" [10] if Israel did not suspend its Operation Summer Rains into the Gaza Strip, which took place is in response to the kidnapping of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) corporal Gilad Shalit. [3] [11] [12] [2] [13] [14] [15] Later on that day the Popular Resistance Committees stated that Asheri was slain. [16]
Around 2:30 am on June 29, the IDF recovered the body of Asheri which had been buried in an open field near the village of Beitunia, not far from Ramallah. [17] [18] Asheri's body was later transferred to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute for a forensic investigation. [19] The forensic investigation revealed that Asheri was shot to death by a bullet to the head from close range, possibly the same day on which he was abducted. [20] The IDF had been led to the site by the Palestinian militant Wasam Abu Ragila, who was a prime suspect of the murder of Asheri, [19] who had been arrested on Wednesday by the Israeli police anti-terror unit and IDF troops and who confessed in his investigation about his part in the kidnapping and murder of Asheri and gave specific details about the location of Asheri's body. [21] [22] [23]
The Popular Resistance Committees claimed responsibility for the attack and presented Asheri's ID card. [24] [25] A Shin Bet investigation revealed that the abduction was carried out by a Tanzim terror cell connected with the PRC in Ramallah on instruction from the PRC leadership in Gaza. [26]
Thousands attended Asheri's funeral which was held on the same day his body was found, during the afternoon hours on the Mount of Olives Jewish cemetery in Jerusalem. [6] [21] The Chief Sephardic Rabbi Shlomo Amar eulogized Asheri in his funeral. [21]
On the morning hours of 4 July 2006, during a joint operation conducted by the IDF and the Israel Security Authorities, the three Tanzim militants whom murdered Eliyahu Asheri and whom were hiding in the a Palestinian Police headquarters building in Ramallah, were apprehended after a three-hour standoff. [27] [28] [29] [30] The three men were Bassam Shafik Atiya Ahtiya, Khamze Salah Taktuk, and Ayham Fuab Nayef Kamamji. All three were reported to be members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and had been serving in the security forces of the Palestinian Authority. [28] [31]
On 1 January 2007 Kamamji was sentenced to two life sentences for the murder of Eliyahu Asheri. [32] In August 2021, he escaped from prison as part of the Gilboa Prison break but was recaptured two weeks later. [33]
The Popular Resistance Committees is a coalition of a number of armed Palestinian groups opposed to what they regard as the conciliatory approach of the Palestinian Authority and Fatah towards Israel.
This page is a partial listing of incidents of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2005.
Itamar is an Israeli settlement located in the West Bank's Samarian mountains, five kilometers southeast of the Palestinian city of Nablus. The settlement was built on land confiscated from the Palestinian villages of Awarta, Beit Furik,Yanun, Aqraba and Rujeib. The predominantly Orthodox and Religious Zionist Jewish community falls in part within the municipal jurisdiction of the Shomron Regional Council. Under the terms of the Oslo Accords of 1993 between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization, Itamar was designated Area "C", under provisional Israeli civil and security control, before a transition period after which Area "C" was to be handed back to the Palestinians. In 2022, it had a population of 1,470.
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The 2006 Gaza–Israel conflict, known in Israel as Operation Summer Rains, was a series of battles between Palestinian militants and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) during summer 2006, prompted by the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants on 25 June 2006. Large-scale conventional warfare occurred in the Gaza Strip, starting on 28 June 2006, which was the first major ground operation in the Gaza Strip since Israel's unilateral disengagement plan was implemented between August and September 2005.
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Events in the year 2006 in Israel.
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June 25, 2006 - Eliahu Asheri, 18, of Itamar was kidnapped by terrorists from the Popular Resistance Committees while hitchhiking to Neveh Tzuf, where he was studying. His body was found on June 29 in Ramallah. It is believed that he was murdered shortly after his kidnapping.