Members of Kibbutz Merav, located on the slopes of Gilboa, near the seam line with northern Samaria, have been suffering for the past two months from random shootings aimed at their Kibbutz from the Palestinian Authority. In a special initiative, the residents sent a letter in Arabic to the residents of the nearby Arab village of Jilbon and demanded that they act so that the shootings do not happen again.
The kibbutz was established in 1982 on Gilboa Ridge, and 140 families and more than a thousand people live there. It was established as a temporary settlement in the area of Kfar Malkishua, and five years later it moved to its current location, near the village of Jilbon. In 2001, the members of the kibbutz first experienced shooting from the direction of the PA, and Eliza Malka, a 16-year-old trainee at the children's home in the kibbutz, was fatally wounded and died on her way to the hospital.
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"After the establishment of the separation fence, life in Merav was quiet and pleasant - until last Passover," said the chairman of Kibbutz Merav Eli Sharri, "shooting started every few days from the direction of the village of Jilbon, it became something disturbing, threatening and disrupting routine. On one of the Sabbaths, during the Shabbat meal, we were attacked by gunfire. The children were lying on the floor, there was much panic, and all during Shabbat evening." Later, according to Sharri, the incident was repeated at different times. "Several houses were hit by bullets, and a tense feeling was created," he noted.
A shooting attack was carried out at Kibbutz Merav in northern Israel on Monday evening, according to the IDF. There were no injuries reported, although a house was damaged.
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The kibbutz, located on the Israeli side of the seamline, is a successful agricultural community growing dates and mangoes and employs around 70 Palestinian workers, all residents of villages in the Jenin governorate who have been approved to work in Israel by the security authorities. "There is pressure from the members of the kibbutz who claim that it is impossible for us to be shot at in the evening, and in the morning support the neighbors of the terrorists who did this," Sharri said, "there were also demands to immediately stop employing Palestinians with us."
Just now again Shooting was carried out from the direction of Jenin (Palis)towards Kibbutz Merav in the Valley of the Springs.
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However, he emphasized that the kibbutz decided not to give up the opportunity for coexistence. "We have decided that we will not fire them. We have known them for many, many years, and there were times in the past when we visited them at family events before it became dangerous. We helped them with humanitarian issues, when a Palestinian child was injured we were by the family's side and assisted with medical treatment. We brought them food during difficult days of closures, we did everything to create good neighborliness. After that, the decision was made to take this special step - to write a letter in Arabic and distribute it through the workers among the residents of the village of Jilbon," Sharri concluded.
