‘Horrified:’ Mother of murdered brothers slams crowdfunding campaign raising funds for ‘village of murderers’ Huwara

Esti Yaniv called it “a backward campaign for the people who handed out baklavas after the murder of my children.”

By World Israel News Staff

The mother of two young brothers killed in a terror attack this week slammed a crowdfunding campaign raising funds for Huwara, the village where the shooting occurred that was rampaged by Jewish rioters hours after the terror attack.

Labor party member Yaya Fink launched the online crowdfunding campaign the morning after the rioting, in which a few hundred Palestinians were wounded and one was killed.

To date, the campaign has raised close to half a million dollars (NIS 1,670,000), with more than 11,200 donors.

Dozens of Jewish rioters demanding firm action against terrorism torched Palestinian property in the village as an act of revenge for the death of the brothers, Hallel Yaniv, 21, and Yagel Yaniv, 19, who were killed in a shooting in Huwara by a terrorist, or terrorists, who fled the scene and is still at large.

“I get up every morning looking out at the village of murderers Huwara, where the murderer of my sons is walking around,” Esti Yaniv said in a video posted online Thursday. “The village of murderers, where treats were handed out [in celebration of the murder].”

She said she was “horrified” by the crowdfunding drive, which she called “a backward campaign for the people who handed out baklavas after the murder of my children.”

“In this face of this campaign of darkness, we’ve come with a campaign to bring light,” she added.

Fink defended the move by saying he serves “50 days of reserve duty a year” to fight Palestinian terror.

“I still think, even if I’ll be the last one to say it, that we need to fight terrorists and eliminate them, but there are innocents among Palestinians, and those who set their homes ablaze and burn innocents have forgotten their humanity and forgotten how to be Jewish,” he said.

“It’s only a small deed, but as the Jewish proverb goes, ‘A little bit of light can dispel a lot of darkness,’” Fink told The Times of Israel in a Monday interview.

Fink, a religious Jew, said he was motivated to do something after seeing the “horrifying” footage showing yarmulke-donning Jews in the riots.

“As a religious Jew myself… I felt that I could not be silent under such circumstances,” Fink said. “They’re creating a warped new Judaism and using the name of the True One in vain.”

He added that background checks would be carried out to ensure that the money did not get into the hands of Palestinians with past security infractions, and that it would reach those who had their homes and property damaged.