Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Palestinians riot as IDF demolishes home of Rina Shnerb killer

Nine months after the roadside bombing that claimed the life of the Israeli teen, Israeli troops bulldoze the house of PFLP terrorist cell member Qassem Shibli.

The IDF demolishes the home of a Palestinian terrorist involved in the murder in August of 17-year-old Israeli Rina Shnerb, on May 11, 2020. Source: IDF.
The IDF demolishes the home of a Palestinian terrorist involved in the murder in August of 17-year-old Israeli Rina Shnerb, on May 11, 2020. Source: IDF.

The Israel Defense Forces reported on Monday that it had demolished the home of a terrorist involved in the murder of 17-year old Rina Shnerb last August.

According to the report, dozens of Palestinians assaulted IDF troops with rocks and Molotov cocktails as they entered the village of Kobar north of Ramallah during the pre-dawn hours on Monday to bulldoze the home of Qassem Shibli. Shibli is a member of the terrorist cell that perpetrated the Aug. 23 roadside bomb attack in which Shnerb was killed and her father and brother wounded during a family outing at a spring near the town of Dolev in Judea and Samaria.

The homes of the other two members of the cell, Walid Hanatsheh and Yazan Mughamis, were demolished by the IDF on March 20. Then, too, dozens of Palestinians burned tires and threw rocks and firebombs at the troops carrying out the demolition.

As in the earlier incidents, the IDF responded on Monday with “riot-dispersal means.”

In December, a months-long operation of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet), the Israel Police and the IDF exposed an extensive Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist network in Judea and Samaria, operated under the leadership of senior PFLP members. The terrorists who murdered Shnerb were members of this network.

On April 21, eight months after their daughter’s murder, her parents announced the birth of a baby girl. Her father, Rabbi Eitan Shnerb, recounted to the Hebrew press that while he was in intensive care following the attack, his wife, Shira, told him that she hadn’t been feeling well and that she believed she was pregnant.

“She was right,” he said. “It is a great joy. It is a victory over the terrorists and the Nazis. They will not succeed. We, the Jewish people, will [continue to] bring children into this world.”

“We will keep litigating until we get to the truth,” Randy Mastro told JNS, after oral arguments in New York County Supreme Court. “I’m sure the court will hear us when these procedural issues are behind us.”
Forum HaGevura (“The Heroism Forum”) warned in the letter, a copy of which the group provided to JNS, that Hamas was exploiting the fact that Israel stopped taking the initiative in Gaza.
“I’m seeing what’s going on in New York,” Stav Cohen, founder of the Israeli nonprofit Frontline Advocates, told JNS. “I fear for my speakers’ lives.”
Community leaders help seek a mother and daughter from Modi’in as an Israeli court restricts publication of investigative details.