This could have been a success for the Israeli radical right, while the country is in the middle of a war against Hamas. Instead, the death of Yuval Doron Kestelman shatters the façade of unity of a fractured country. During the attack on Thursday, November 30 at the entrance to West Jerusalem, two attackers machine-gunned a crowd of Israelis at a bus stop, leaving three dead and several injured. Immediately, two reservist soldiers intervened and eliminated the perpetrators of the attack, two Palestinians from East Jerusalem. A third individual, an Israeli, is the victim of friendly fire.
One of the soldiers, Aviad Frija, comes from the so-called “hill youth” movement, this radical religious nationalist organization which advocates colonization of the entire West Bank and the expulsion of Palestinians. He lives in Ahiya, in the occupied West Bank, a wild colony, illegal even under Israeli law.
Celebrated as a hero on the networks
By intervening to neutralize the attackers, Aviad Frija reinforced the positions of Itamar Ben Gvir, the supremacist minister of national security. The latter, himself living in the colony of Kiryat Arba near Hebron, took the opportunity to promote his policy of massive arming of the population: “I appeal to the citizens of Israel: the police are not everywhere, so where citizens are armed, it can save lives. » Since October 7, more than 20,000 new weapons permits have been granted.
Aviad Frija is celebrated as a hero, on social networks, by the fiery minister as well as by Zvi Sukkot, a young parliamentarian and leading provocateur in the settler movement. The soldier testified on channel 14, the same day of the attack: “It was really a stroke of luck that I was in the right place at the right time; all IDF soldiers [l’armée israélienne] are ready to die to mark a cross”reference to the custom, among certain soldiers, of engraving a mark on his weapon for each person killed.
But as the day progressed, it appeared that the Israeli killed by friendly fire was in reality the first to have targeted the attackers and put an end to the attack. Yuval Doron Kestelman, a 37-year-old lawyer with security experience who was driving by, stopped and used his personal weapon. Once the danger had passed, Mr. Kestelman took no risks in the face of the still armed soldiers. He knelt down, threw down his weapon and raised his hands high. Witnesses report that he shouted several times, in Hebrew: ” Do not pull ! I am Jewish ! » But Aviad Frija fired, despite the obvious signs of calm.
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