18 youth detained at Ramat Migron

Sunday, August 21 8:37 During Shabbat several Arab shepherds entered the Ramat Migron outpost in the Binyamin region. The shepherds began to wander around the area of the outpost, including the site of the young men’s house that had been set on fire by Arabs at the beginning of the week.
According to the Arabs, several masked men arrived, attacked an Arab boy approximately 10 years old and slaughtered one of the goats. IDF forces evacuated the boy, whose status the Arabs classified as “serious”, for medical treatment. However after a short time the boy was released from hospital and arrived at the Binyamin police department to give testimony, accompanied by someone from the left-wing organization ‘B’Tselem’.
At approximately 16:30 large numbers of police and army forces arrived at Ramat Migron and arrested all of the young men at the site and transported them, in violation of Shabbat, to the Binyamin police station. Thirteen young men between the ages of 13 and nineteen were arrested. The youths deny the suspicions attributed to them.
After Shabbat large numbers of police and army forces arrived at Ramat Migron and carried out a police-style “price tag” operation. The forces, using tractors, destroyed the outpost down to the foundations, in the process damaging religious items and personal belongings. During the destruction five young women were arrested on suspicion of interfering with a policeman in the line of duty and entering a closed military zone.
The police left all 18 detainees in remand overnight and in the morning will apparently bring them to court. Honenu attorney Naftali Wertzberger briefed the detainees overnight and will represent them in court in the morning.
It should be noted that during the past week hundreds of Arabs from the village of Mukhmas attempted to go up to the Ramat Migron outpost every night. Last Monday Arabs set fire to one of the houses of the outpost. Only by a miracle did one of the residents who was sleeping in the building succeed in escaping with minor burns.
Ramat Migron residents responded to yesterday’s incident and said that, “We hope that the IDF and other security forces will start to operate in Gaza and not only against outposts in Yehuda and Shomron. If the IDF would apply the same principle of revenge that they used against Ramat Migron in their treatment of the Arabs who murder innocent Jews and launch missiles at cities in southern Israel, then the security situation of Israel would improve immensely.”