Netanyahu: I'll annex Kiryat Arba and the Jewish community in Hebron

Netanyahu said he plans to annex Hebron and Kiryat Arba.

By World Israel News Staff

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he plans to annex Kiryat Arba and the Jewish community of Hebron in an interview on Monday with Israel Army Radio.

His remarks are in keeping with his announcement on Sept. 10 to “extend Israeli sovereignty on all the settlements.” He also reiterated his intention to annex the Jordan Valley.

Netanyahu visited Hebron on Sept 5. It was his first visit to the ancient city in 20 years. He had come to attend a commemoration marking the 90th anniversary of the 1929 Hebron massacre, in which 67 Jews were murdered by Arab rioters.

“Hebron will never be Judenrein… We are not strangers in Hebron,” Netanyahu said at the time. The city is the site of the Cave of the Patriarchs, where the Jewish people’s patriarchs and matriarchs are buried.

However, he was criticized by parties to the right of Likud for failing to go further in his statements, particularly regarding his failure to approve a plan to build new Jewish homes in the neighborhood.

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Hebron’s Jewish residents number 800. The Arab population of the city is some 160,000.

Kiryat Arba is a wholly Jewish city on the outskirts of Hebron with a population of roughly 8,000.