The victim of Friday’s shooting attack: Rabbi Michael Mark, father of 10

Rabbi Michael “Miki” Mark Hy’d

The latest victim of Arab anti-Jewish terror (mentioned in Friday’s post) is Rabbi Michael “Miki” Mark, who was the Director of Otniel Yeshiva.

Rabbi Michael “Miki” Mark, 48, a father of 10 and the director-general of the Otniel Yeshiva was killed Friday by a Palestinian gunmen as he drove on Route 60 in the South Hebron Hills.

His wife and two of his children, ages 14 and 15 were wounded in the incident that occurred near the Aduraim Junction.

The junction is located just 15 kilometers down the road from the Kiryat Arba settlement, where a Palestinian terrorist infiltrated a home and stabbed to death Hallel Yaffa Ariel, 13, on Thursday morning.

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In Friday’s incident, the rain of bullets against the vehicle caused it to overturn. Paramedics who arrived at the scene found Mark in the upside down vehicle, while the other passengers had been managed to exit the car.

Magen David Adom paramedic Zaki Yahav said that it was a “very difficult” scene. Mark “was trapped inside” with gunshot wounds and other injuries form the accident. He didn’t have a pulse and he wasn’t breathing. “We tried to resuscitate him,” said Zahav, but it was not possible they declared him dead at the scene.

Magen David Adom reported that Mark’s wife, in her 40s has been evacuated while sedated and intubated, and rushed to the Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Karem in serious condition. His daughter, 14, sustained with a gun shot wound to her stomach is in serious condition and his son, 15-year-, was lightly injured.

Rabi Marc was a Torah scholar as well as an outstanding administrator:

“Miki, who was the director of the Hesder Yeshiva (Torah college) in Otniel, saw the school as his life’s project and one of the most important projects in Israeli society.

“The Yeshiva in Otniel has known sad times, and to our sorrow the list of its alumni who have fallen in Israel’s conflicts is long,” said Rivlin in reference to the 2002 attack in which two Palestinians infiltrated the building and killed four students.

המקום ינחם אתכם בתוך שאר אבלי ציון וירושלים. May his memory be for a blessing.

Rabbi Marc’s wife Hava is still in a very serious condition:

Professor Avi RIvkind, head of Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital’s Trauma Unit, told reporters Saturday that Chava was operated on by a number of different medical teams for gunshot wounds to her upper body. She will soon be transferred to intensive care.

He added that despite her life no longer being in danger, the victim is still in serious condition, and the long-term effects of her extensive injuries will not be fully known for some time.

As mentioned above, the couple’s 15-year-old son was also admitted to hospital with light injured, which he incurred after their car flipped over when the terrorists overtook it and fired some 20 rounds.

Their 14-year-old daughter – who suffered gunshots wounds in the attack – is in stable condition and making a steady recovery; she is set to be discharged from hospital in the coming days.

What has the government’s reaction to this deadly terror wave been? Beyond pathetic! Approving the construction of just a few dozen homes in Kiryat Arba that were already approved and then frozen months ago!

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman announced late Friday their decision to approve 42 new housing units in the town of Kiryat Arba near Hevron, where a terrorist murdered a 13-year-old girl in her bed on Thursday.

The new houses will be built in the same part of the town where the young victim of that attack, Hallel Yaffa Ariel, lived.

Tenders for the housing units in question were initially issued a year and a half ago, but they were frozen for political reasons. The government’s decision yesterday essentially green-lighted construction to begin.

In addition, the decision was made to enact a total lockdown of the Arab settlements in the Hevron area, and to cancel all work permits issued to resident of the village of Bani Naim, where Hallel’s murderer lived – a total of 2,800 permits.

The government also decided to build a special cemetery for the bodies of terrorists slain while murdering or attempting to murder Israelis. The funds needed to build the cemetery will be deducted from the tax revenue which Israel collects for the Palestinian Authority.

This response from the sovereign government of the State of Israel is pathetic!  An instruction to build 42 (forty-two!) homes in Kiryat Arba? How long till the construction is frozen yet again under pressure from our “friends” the United States and the Europeans?  In any case building homes for Jews ANYWHERE in Israel, whether inside the 1967 lines, or beyond them, in Jerusalem or the Golan Heights or the heart of Hevron – such construction should NOT be used as a punishment against the Palestinians.  We should be building because we are the rightful owners of the land! We need to accommodate natural growth plus immigration, both from abroad and internally within Israel and no one should be permitted to butt in on a purely domestic issue. If we don’t stand up for our own indigenous rights, no one else will.

As for the cessation of tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority – how long will that sanction last? I’ll be pleasantly surprised if it continues for more than 48 hours – again most likely under pressure from “human rights for everyone except Jews” do-gooders who will worry how the poor Palestinian terrorists and their families will live to see another day in order to murder more Jews. As to the building of the homes – such construction should NOT be used as a punishment against the Palestinians. We should be building because we are the rightful owners of the land! We need to accommodate natural growth plus immigration, both from abroad and internally within Israel.

If the Palestinians, or at the very least the terrorists and their enablers, need to be punished – and they do! – Israel has many tools at its disposal. Besides cutting off funding to the PA, we can cut off electricity until the bill has been paid in its entirety. This amounts to billions of shekels carried by the Israeli taxpayer.  We can and must take over the educational system and re-educate the Palestinian youth to the minimum norms of humanity, which includes first and foremost: Thou shalt not murder. Not even a Zionist girl sleeping in her bed.  We should expel terrorist murderers, their families and their supporters. If no foreign country will accept them, send them to Gaza.

And it is beyond time that Judea and Samaria were annexed to Israel just like Jerusalem and the Golan Heights were. Any Palestinians who don’t like the situation are free to move. In fact they could be encouraged to move with monetary incentives. Those who are prepared to live in peace with Israel should be allowed and encouraged to stay.

It is time for Israel to take its future into its own hands instead of begging the Palestinians to “recognize” us, futilely begging Abbas to condemn acts of terror, or pleading with the Europeans to condemn Palestinian incitement and violence. It’s not going to happen, and even if it does, it will not have the slightest effect on the ground.

Enough! די! מספיק