Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday that there was no excuse that could justify the Palestinian security forces’ fatal use of live fire against the Israelis who entered Joseph’s Tomb without authorization.
Ben-Joseph Livnat, 25, was killed and three others were wounded before dawn when an officer shot at the Israelis’ vehicles as they were leaving the holy compound near the West Bank city of Nablus.
The security officer on duty claimed that the Israelis, who has failed to coordinate their pilgrimage with Israeli forces, had exhibited "suspicious movement", prompting him to open fire.
"No problem of coordination can justify an incident like this and the shooting of innocent people," Barak said, calling the incident no less than "murder".
The victim’s aunt, Science and Culture Minister Limor Livnat, released the following statement following his death: "The minister is shocked by the murder of her nephew. A young man whose goal on the final eve of Passover was just to pray was killed in cold blood in a revolting matter, and left behind a wife and four orphans."
The minister, accompanied by her parents at the funeral, said that her "nephew was killed by a terrorist disguised as a Palestinian policeman, through no fault of his own, just because he wished to pray. He was a person who just wanted to do good."
Livnat tearfully added "my nephew was named for Shlomo Ben-Joseph who sacrificed his soul for the land of Israel, and now my nephew has been murdered for the land of Israel, my dear son."
A spokesman of the West Bank settlement council declared that Israel could not let the shooting of its citizens by Palestinian security forces pass silently.
"The recent murders of Jews were the result of incitement by the Palestinian Authority, under the leadership of Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas], but this is a murder carried out by the Authority itself, exactly like in the days of [late Palestinian leader Yssser] Arafat," said the spokesman of the Yesha Council of Settlements.
"The defensive wall built by the IDF nine years ago has cracked once again, this time from bullets fire by those who want to be given a state," added the spokesman.
Right-wing MK Michael Ben Ari condemned the shooting immediately and declared that
"whoever trained and armed the enemy army, called the Palestinian police, is directly responsible for the murder at Joseph’s Tomb… The Israeli government must recollect all the weapons held by terrorists in uniform."
MKs Ze’ev Elkin and Aryeh Eldad called on the government to "reconsider its good relations with the Palestinian police… which too often creates terror instead of fighting terror."
The Israel Defense Forces officially pulled out of Joseph’s Tomb in 2000, at the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada.
Following years of closure, Jewish worshipers are now able to enter Nablus often with a military escort to pray at the small building traditionally identified as the tomb of the biblical Joseph, located inside a Palestinian-ruled area.
Those visits are coordinated with Palestinian security forces. The Israelis’ entrance on Sunday, however, appeared not to have been cleared with either side.
Israeli and Palestinian security forces in the West Bank have close ties. A meeting between the sides was scheduled later Sunday to discuss the incident, the military said.