Honenu Attorney Avichai Hajbi; Photo credit: Honenu
Sunday, September 21, 2025, 9:44 On July 28, local Jewish residents were doing groundwork for a neighborhood within the municipality of Carmel, a community in the Har Hevron region. Suddenly, they were attacked by an Arab mob accompanied by foreign activists. The mob and the activists came from Umm al-Khair, an Arab village in Area C, and headed for the Jewish community of Carmel. They violently threw rocks at the residents, and also broke the windshields of residents’ cars and that of an excavator. One of the attacked residents, feeling that his life was endangered, fired his weapon into the air. The Arabs at the scene claimed that one Arab was injured, and that he was later pronounced dead.
The police detained the resident, and confiscated his weapon. He was released with the assistance of Honenu. However, his weapon is still in the hands of the police. Honenu Attorney Avichai Hajbi is representing the resident.
After the attack, the family of the allegedly killed Arab demanded that the Har Hevron resident who opened fire in self defense be served with a restraining order, banning him from the region of their village. The Jerusalem Magistrates and District Courts rejected the demand, but served the Arab’s family and the resident with restraining orders, to ensure that they would keep a distance from each other.
During a court hearing for the Har Hevron resident, Attorney Hajbi asked the brother of the allegedly killed Arab if the residents of the village were planning to avenge his death. The brother responded with a thinly veiled threat: “If someone killed someone from your family, your brother or your father, would you allow him to come to your village? We are a Bedouin family. There are 300 residents in this village, and I am not responsible for all of them.”
Immediately after the incident, left-wing activists shared posts in social media. Among them were Moshe Radman, MK Ofer Cassif, MK Ayman Odeh, Yariv Oppenheimer, and other Peace Now activists. Some of the posts were libelous, and included doctored and deceptively edited videos.
Attorney Hajbi commented on the case: “The law enforcement authorities have abandoned the Har Hevron resident. Although we underscored in court that my client’s life had been in imminent danger, and even then he fired into the air and not at the mob, his weapon has not yet been returned to him. The unequivocal statements by the residents of the Bedouin village border on cries for vengeance. The authorities must ensure the safety of the Har Hevron resident before tragedy occurs.”