‘Complicated mission’: IDF rescues Jewish woman and child from Palestinian village

The woman had been in an abusive relationship and was not allowed to leave her home.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The IDF rescued a Jewish woman and her young child from her home in a Palestinian village of Tuesday after she called an anti-miscegenation group for help.

“This is a woman who we’ve been in touch with for a long time,” Lehava founder and head Bentzi Gopstein told Arutz Sheva.

Lehava opposes intermarriage between Jews and Arabs.

After its activists clashed with Arabs in May during the Jerusalem Day flag march to the Old City, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Lehava should be designated as a terror organization. The U.S. reportedly also plans to designate Lehava as a terror organization.

When the woman’s family said Tuesday morning that it would be possible to get her out if action was taken immediately, Lehava advised them to ask the army for help.

“It was a very intricate and complicated rescue operation,” Gopstein said.

The woman had been trapped in her home by a violent Palestinian husband, according to Religious Zionism party head Betzalel Smotrich, who tweeted about the incident during and after the rescue.

“A mother and her son have just been extracted from an Arab village in Samaria,” Smotrich wrote. “This was a long and complicated mission that encountered difficulties and thank God ended well.

“The woman and her son were literally being held captive… and underwent a whole period of terrible abuse. Their lives were in danger because of a race between the IDF and collaborators [of the Arab family], who would get to them first. Thanks go to all those involved.”

Earlier, the religious MK had tweeted for his followers to say Psalms due to “a dramatic ongoing case of saving a life” that he could not provide details about. He later apologized for scaring people into thinking that a possible terrorist incident had occurred.

An IDF statement confirmed the military’s involvement.

“Earlier today, a report was received about an Israeli citizen who is in distress in the village of Qablan in the Samaria Regional Brigade. IDF forces entered the village and safely rescued the civilian and her son. There are no casualties to our forces.”

Qablan is south of Nablus (Shechem), and had a population of just over 7,000 as of 2007. In 2016, a Hezbollah operative from the village was arrested as part of a cell directed from Gaza to plan terror attacks against Israelis.

The woman was taken to one of Lehava’s safe apartments that the organization keeps for women in similar situations.