Hamas Says Yeshiva Student’s Murder Was Response to Talk of Israeli Sovereignty

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad also praised the terror murder, issuing a statement that called it a “heroic attack which sends an important message.”

By United With Israel Staff 

The Hamas terror organization says that the murder of 19-year-old Dvir Sorek, a yeshiva student whose fatally stabbed body was found early on Thursday morning in Judea, was “a powerful response” to Israeli talk of imposing the Jewish State’s civilian law over areas of Judea and Samaria where Israelis currently live.

However, this latest deadly terrorist attack also led to more calls in Israel to impose the state’s sovereignty in Judea and Samaria. Though it liberated these territories in 1967, Israel has never moved to fully exert its control. The IDF has been in charge of overall security.

Israel does not accept the classification of Judea and Samaria as “occupied.”

Even so, it agreed in 1993 to a declaration of principles granting self-rule to Arab residents and the ultimate establishment of a Palestinian state. However, rampant Palestinian terror – including some 1,000 Israelis murdered in the 2000-2005 Second Intifada – prevented that from happening.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad also praised the terror murder, issuing a statement that called it a “heroic attack which sends an important message.”

“They come to uproot; we come to plant. They come to destroy; we come to build. Our hands will reach out and we will deepen our roots in our homeland – in all parts of it,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday in response to Sorek’s murder.

“This is a decision of our people to expel the occupier…It’s proof that our people’s intifada continues in the West Bank [Judea and Samaria] and that the young do not renounce their struggle until the occupation is vanished and settlers expelled,” Hamas said in a statement in response to the terror attack, which was also hailed by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group.

Netanyahu declared that Israel’s “mission is to establish the nation of Israel in our country, [and] to secure our sovereignty over our historic homeland.”