Ben-Gvir ‘stops appointment’ of Palestinian citizen of Israek officer as head of Hebron border police

Israel’s extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has attempted to stop the appointment of a Palestinian citizen of Israel as the commander of a battalion of the Border Police stationed in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Chief Superintendent Wasim Ashkar, a Palestinian Christian from within Israel’s 1948 borders, was due to take the post as commander of the Israeli Border Police force at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, where Israel has allowed Jewish settlers to worship since 1967.

The site is believed to be the burial place of the Prophet Abraham and is known as the Tomb of the Patriarchs by Israelis. In 1994, Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinian worshippers there during Ramadan.

Ben-Gvir himself lives in an Israeli settlement in Hebron’s Old City and regularly prays at the site, along with around 500 Israeli settlers who frequently terrorise the local Palestinian population.

Most of Hebron is under the control of the Palestinian Authority, however, the Old City, where the settlers live among 20,000 Palestinians is under Israeli control.

On Monday two Israeli border police officers were wounded by grenade shrapnel at the Ibrahim Mosque.

Ashkar’s appointment as commander of the battalion in Hebron was approved by the overall commander of the Israeli border police, Yitzhak Brik.

However, Ben-Gvir stopped this and tried to appoint Amir David, an ultra-Orthodox Jew who currently heads the Border Police in Tel Aviv, even though David had refused the role, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

The border police’s role in Hebron is to assist the Israeli army in securing the area. The border police commander is de facto subordinate to the Israeli army’s Central Command.