IDF refused to demolish Palestinian terror monuments – so an MK did it on his own

Israeli lawmaker enters Palestinian Authority villages, personally demolishes monuments honoring terrorists who murdered Israelis.

By World Israel News Staff

Israeli lawmaker Tzvi Sukkot entered two Palestinian villages in Samaria on Tuesday and personally smashed monuments honoring terrorists involved in deadly attacks on Israelis, after he said repeated demands for the military to remove the memorials went unanswered.

Sukkot, a Religious Zionismt Party MK who chairs the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee’s subcommittee for Judea and Samaria, arrived in the villages of Madama and Burin, south of Nablus, carrying a sledgehammer.

IDF and Border Police forces secured his entry into the villages, and Sukkot said the operation was coordinated with the military.

Footage from the scene showed Sukkot striking and destroying the monuments.

“A few days ago, I demanded that the army remove the monuments glorifying terrorists in the villages of Madama and Burin, but unfortunately they remained in place. Therefore I arrived myself and acted to remove them,” Sukkot said.

One of the monuments, located in Madama, commemorated Yamen Taieb Ali Faraj, who Israeli court records identified as having assisted in dispatching the suicide bomber who carried out the December 25, 2003 bombing at the Geha Junction near Petah Tikva.

Four Israelis — Adva Fisher, Noam Leibowitz, Angelina Shcherov and Rotem Weinberger — were killed in that attack and more than 20 others were wounded.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility for the bombing. Contemporary reports said the suicide bomber detonated himself at a crowded bus stop during the evening rush hour.

A second monument destroyed by Sukkot in Burin commemorated Hamdan Hussein Mahmoud al-Najjar. According to the account cited by Israel Hayom, al-Najjar ambushed and killed Israeli civilian Yaakov Faraj near the Jewish community of Har Bracha in December 1988, seized Faraj’s weapon and then opened fire on Israeli soldiers who arrived at the scene. Cpl. Arthur Herzig was killed and two additional soldiers were wounded before al-Najjar was shot dead.

Sukkot said that allowing such monuments to remain standing amounted to legitimizing attacks on Israelis and presenting their perpetrators as figures worthy of emulation.

“We will not allow a situation where those who harmed Jews and IDF soldiers are commemorated as heroes and presented to the next generation as figures of adoration,” he said.

“Alongside the fight against terrorism itself, we must prevent attempts to legitimize it in the public consciousness,” Sukkot continued. “Many Jews paid with their lives because of the terrorists originating from these villages.”

“We will not allow the murder of Jews to be glorified, nor will we permit the commemoration of terrorism to become part of our public space.”

Sukkot had visited the entrance to Madama earlier in August after reports drew attention to monuments honoring terrorists in the area.

At the time, he vowed to continue pressing for their removal, saying, “I will act in every way available to me until these monuments are removed.”

The decision to send Israeli forces to secure Tuesday’s operation drew criticism from opposition MK Gilad Kariv of the far-left Democrats party, who accused the military of applying inconsistent standards to lawmakers seeking to enter Palestinian communities.

Kariv said requests in recent weeks for an IDF-coordinated visit to the village of Qusra had repeatedly been denied on the grounds that sufficient troops were unavailable.

“Time and again we asked to coordinate an arrival in Kusra with the IDF over recent weeks. Time and again our request has been refused without explanation, undermining parliamentary oversight work,” Kariv said. “There is no manpower, we were told.”