The terrorist group cited importation of red heifers to justify its invasion of Israel.
By World Israel News Staff
The Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7th, and the subsequent massacres of Israelis, were prompted in part by the importation of “red cows” into Israeli, a senior Hamas spokesman said last week.
Abu Obeida, the nom de guerre of Hamas’ chief spokesman, said during a televised statement last week marking the 100th day since the October 7th invasion that Hamas launched the attacks in response to Israeli “aggression” against “our path and Al Aqsa” – a reference to the mosque on the Temple Mount – as well as Israel’s “bringing of red cows.”
“We look back 100 days to remember the educated, the complicit, and the incapacitated among the world powers governed by the law of the jungle,” Abu Obeida said, “reminding them of an aggression that reached its peak against our path (Al-Quds) and Al-Aqsa, with the start of its actual temporal and spatial division, and the bringing of red cows as an application of a detestable religious myth designed for aggression against the feelings of an entire nation in the heart of its Arab identity, and the path of its prophet (the Night Journey) and Ascension to heaven.”
While Hamas and other Islamist terrorist groups have regularly cited alleged “aggression” against the Al Aqsa Mosque to justify their attacks on Israelis as well as Jewish targets abroad, Abu Obeida appeared to also target efforts by religious Jewish groups to reestablish the Temple in Jerusalem.
In Jewish law, the ashes of a burnt red heifer are mixed with water to purify those working in the Temple and pilgrims visiting the holy site.
To be used in the ritual, a red heifer must be entirely red, with no blemishes or even two non-red adjacent hairs, making such creatures quite rare.
The Temple Institute, based in the Old City of Jerusalem, found five such heifers in Texas in 2022, and imported them to Israel, with the goal of grooming them for potential use in the purification ritual, a first-step towards the group’s goal of rebuilding the Temple on the Temple Mount.