The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, also known as the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre or the Hebron massacre,[1] was a shooting massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli physician and extremist of the far-right ultra-Zionist Kach movement. On 25 February 1994, during the Jewish holiday of Purim, which had overlapped in that year with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan,[2] Goldstein, dressed in Israeli army uniform,[3] opened fire with an assault rifle on a large gathering of Palestinian Muslims praying in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. He killed 29 people, several as young as 12 years, and wounded 125.[4] Goldstein was overpowered and beaten to death by survivors.
The atrocity strained the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo Accords peace process, immediately setting off mass protests by Palestinians throughout the West Bank. During the ensuing clashes, a further 20 to 26 Palestinians were killed while 120 were injured in confrontations with the Israeli military,[5] and 9 Israeli Jews were also killed.[6]
Goldstein was widely denounced in Israel and by communities in the Jewish diaspora,[7] with many attributing his act to insanity.[8] Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin condemned the attack, describing Goldstein as a "degenerate murderer" and "a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism".[9][10][11] Some Jewish settlers in Hebron lauded him as a hero, viewing his attack as a pre-emptive strike and his subsequent death as an act of martyrdom.[12] Following statements in support of Goldstein's actions, the Jewish ultranationalist Kach party was banned and designated a terrorist organization by the Israeli government.[13]
^Yoram Peri, The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, Stanford University Press, 2000, pp. 100–103: "The Hebron massacre in perspective".
^Cook, William (2010). The plight of the Palestinians: a long history of destruction (1st ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 45. ISBN9780230100374.
^1 Wilson, Rodney. 2007. Review Article: Islam and Terrorism. British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies. 34(2):203–213. {{Doi:10.1080/13530190701427933}}. Accessed 29 August 2010).