Family of terror victim demands change in policy

Sunday, October 7, 2018, 13:53 Following the terror attack in Barkan, Moshe Shevah, whose son, Rabbi Raziel Shevah, was murdered in a January 2018 shooting attack in Havat Gilad by a terror cell assisted by collaborators, turned to the IDF and demanded that they improve the deterrence factor against individuals collaborating with terrorists: “We demanded that the GOC of the Central Command demolish collaborators’ houses, and the responses we received were ridiculous. If there had not been collaborators assisting the terrorist in Barkan, had he not been able to escape, they [the security forces] would have caught him. The policy must change, first of all with regards to collaborators, who are terrorists in the full sense of the word.”
Concerning the attack which occurred on the morning of Sunday, October 7, in Barkan, Shevah stated that, “There are claims that collaborators assist [terrorists] only after a terror attack. Who said so? Now the terrorist who carried out the horrific attack in Barkan is being sheltered. Who says that they won’t help him carry out another terror attack in a few days, and who knows what the results will be? The ease with which the State makes it easy for collaborators is simply absurd.”
Shevah mentioned the early release of collaborators who had abetted the terrorist who murdered border policewoman Hadas Malka: “The decision was made because they expressed regret, despite the recommendations of the GSS and the security forces. The collaborators’ sentence was extremely lenient, 8-18 months.” Shevah also decried how the law is enforced concerning collaborators, including those who collaborated with his son’s murderer: “They are accomplices to terror, before and after an attack, like with my son, Rabbi Raziel, and they are being judged as criminals. Someone who carried out a crime has violated the rules of society, but a terrorist violates society itself. These are two different things,” he stated.
Honenu Attorney Chayim Bleicher, who is assisting the Shevah family with their demand that collaborators’ houses be demolished stated that, “On April 4th, 2018, we demanded in a letter to the GOC of the Central Command in the name of Rabbi Raziel Shevah’s family that the houses of the collaborators who hid the murderous terrorist, when he was still armed and intended to carry out additional attacks, be demolished. In the letter we warned about the need for a deterrence factor against collaborators who facilitate carrying out terror attacks. Unfortunately our demand was rejected.
“Following today’s attack, and the fact that the terrorist was still armed when he escaped, we call on the security system to inform all terrorists and their collaborators: ‘Anyone who hides a murderous terrorist in his home will have his home demolished.’ Refraining from this legal and elementary step is tantamount to foot-dragging and harms the security of citizens.”