Mosque of Abraham massacre: In the Cave of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron, Baruch Goldstein opens fire with an automatic rifle, killing 29 Palestinian worshippers and injuring 125 more before being subdued and beaten to death by survivors.
The Cave of the Patriarchs or Tomb of the Patriarchs, known to Jews as the Cave of Machpelah (Hebrew: , Me'arat HaMakhpela , lit.'Cave of the Double Caves') and to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque (Arabic: , al-Masjid al-Ibrahimi lit.'Mosque of Abraham'), is a series of caves situated 30 kilometres (19 mi) south of Jerusalem in the heart of the Old City of Hebron in the West Bank. According to the Abrahamic religions, the cave and adjoining field were purchased by Abraham as a burial plot, although most historians believe the Abraham-Isaac-Jacob narrative to be primarily mythological.Over the cave stands a large rectangular enclosure dating from the Herodian era. During Byzantine rule of the region, a basilica was built on the site; the structure was converted into the Ibrahimi Mosque following the Muslim conquest of the Levant. By the 12th century, the mosque and its surrounding regions had fallen under Crusader-state control, but were retaken in 1188 by the Ayyubid sultan Saladin, who again converted the structure into a mosque.During the Six-Day War of 1967, the entire Jordanian-occupied West Bank was seized and occupied by the State of Israel, after which the structure was divided into a synagogue and a mosque. In 1968, a special arrangement was made to accommodate Jewish services on the Jewish New Year and Day of Atonement, leading to a hand-grenade attack on 9 October which injured 47 Israelis; and a second bombing on 4 November, which wounded 6 people. Further attacks occurred on Yom Kippur eve in 1976, when an Arab mob destroyed several Torah scrolls and prayer books at the tomb, and in May 1980, when an attack on Jewish worshippers returning from prayers at the tomb left 6 dead and 17 wounded. In 1994, the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre occurred at the Ibrahimi Mosque, in which an armed Israeli settler entered the complex on the Jewish holiday of Purimwhich had occurred during the Islamic holy month of Ramadanand opened fire on Palestinian Muslims who had gathered to pray at the site, killing 29 people, including children, and wounding over 125.
The site is considered to be the second-holiest place in Judaism, after the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, as well as the fourth holiest site in Islam.
The Cave of the Patriarchs massacre, also known as the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre or the Hebron massacre, was a shooting massacre carried out by Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli extremist and member of the far-right Kach movement. On 25 February 1994, during the Jewish holiday of Purim, which had overlapped in that year with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, Goldstein opened fire on a large number of Palestinian Muslims who had gathered to pray inside the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron. The attack left 29 people dead, several as young as 12 years, and 125 wounded. Goldstein was overpowered, disarmed, and then beaten to death by survivors.
The massacre immediately set off mass protests by Palestinians throughout the West Bank, and during the ensuing clashes, a further 20 to 26 Palestinians were killed while 120 were injured in confrontations with the Israeli military; 9 Israeli Jews were also killed during this time.Goldstein was widely denounced in Israel and by communities in the Jewish diaspora, with many attributing his act to insanity. Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin condemned the attack, describing Goldstein as a "degenerate murderer" and "a shame on Zionism and an embarrassment to Judaism". Some Jewish settlers in Hebron lauded him as a hero and viewed his attack as a pre-emptive strike as well as his subsequent death as an act of martyrdom. Following statements in support of Goldstein's actions, the Jewish ultranationalist Kach party was banned and designated as a terrorist organization by the Israeli government.