Thursday, October 3, 2024, 10:46 p.m.
Israel waits, but does not forget. The Shin Bet Intelligence agency and the army announced yesterday the death of Aziz Salha, a Palestinian who became popular in 2000 for the lynching of two soldiers in Ramallah during the second Intifada. The Defense Forces located Salha in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, and killed him in an airstrike.
That murder of the two reservists, Yosef Avrahami and Vadim Norzhic, dealt a severe emotional blow to Israeli society, especially due to its savagery. The soldiers were on patrol when they took a wrong turn and, instead of returning to their unit, they ended up in the West Bank city, under the control of the Palestinian Authority, whose Police decided to arrest them and take them to the police station.
The news of the arrest spread like wildfire and inflamed a mob of Palestinians, who decided to take revenge after the death of several compatriots in clashes with Israeli security forces. The protesters stormed the police station, seized the two soldiers and beat, stabbed and mutilated them to death. Then they tore their bodies to pieces. One image captured Aziz Salha leaning out of a window showing his bloody hands to a sickening crowd.
The young man, who became a symbol of the protests, was arrested in 2001 along with others accused of the lynching. He ended up sentenced to life in prison in 2017, but seven years later the authorities released him. He was one of 1,027 prisoners Hamas demanded to release in exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. Despite his release from prison, the Defense Forces have tracked him all these years. In fact, it has been linked by the Intelligence service to the organization of attacks against military units in the Strip.
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