On Monday, three Jewish shepherds were taken to the hospital after being beaten by a gang of Arabs and foreign anarchists near Susiya.

One of the shepherds still requires hospitalization. He has a serious head injury and was beaten all over his body.

The second shepherd was released overnight. His jaw, and nearly all his teeth were broken in the attack.

The third shepherd was also released overnight. He suffered a crushed hand, and one of his fingers was nearly cut off completely.

The police have a video of the attack. Five Arabs were arrested as a result.

Six Israeli shepherds from Mitzpeh Yair in the southern Hebron Hills were violently attacked by Arabs and foreign activists Monday.

The shepherds, who were tending their sheep at the time were attacked with metal poles and rocks by a group of some 20 Arabs who were accompanied by anarchists.

The incident appears to be a planned provocation.

One of the shepherds told Tazpit News Agency that the attackers began plowing the privately, Jewish-owned grazing grounds, and when they were asked to stop the Arabs and activists physically attacked the shepherds.

Three of the shepherds were injured with head and face injuries; one suffered a concussion; another had his jaw and several teeth broken. They were evacuated by MDA to a Jerusalem hospital. IDF forces arrived on the scene and arrested several of the attackers.

The Jewish shepherds are attacked on a regular basis and carry with them cameras to document these assaults. During today’s incident they were able to film the attack, but the cameras were broken during the violent event. It is unclear if the pictures are retrievable.

Mitzpeh Yair was founded more then a decade ago in memory of Yair Har-Sinai of Susiya, located across the highway from Mitzpeh Yair. Har-Sinai, who refused to carry a weapon, was murdered by Arabs as he was grazing his sheep. His wife Dalia, with the help of workers and volunteers, maintains the farm.

Susiya is famous for the ancient Jewish synagogue, mosaics and other buildings that were uncovered at the site of this Jewish town that existed from at least the 2nd century until the 6th.

A Jewish-owned car was shot at near the town of Emanuel in the Shomron. No one was injured in the attack.

An alert level was raised in the town in light of the shooting.

On Wednesday morning, following Arab calls for disturbances on the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, one policeman was injured in the face and needed to be taken for medical treatment.

Israeli Police dispersed approximately 20 Arab youths on the Temple Mount who were throwing stones at them. Another dozen ran inside the mosque and locked the door to avoid arrest.

Police managed to arrest two of the stone throwers, and a third Arab who was inciting the rest of the mob to attack.

On Tuesday, police arrested two leaders of the Islamic Movement in northern Israel, on suspicion that they called for Arab riots on the Temple Mount.

The Temple Mount is now quiet.

The Temple Mount was opened to visitors on Wednesday morning, on the eve of Rosh Hashana, and masked Arabs took advantage of that and began stoning visitors and policemen in the Temple Mount plaza.

Following the stoning, police entered the Temple Mount in force and scattered the stone throwers, many of whom ran into the mosque to avoid arrest.

It is now quiet on the Temple Mount, and the visits are continuing uninterrupted.

This morning, police also turned around dozen of buses transporting Arabs heading to the Temple Mount.

Raed Salach, the head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, called on his Arab followers to prevent Jews from going up to the Temple Mount today.

Raed Salach was previously convicted of funding Hamas, meeting an Iranian intelligence officer, and attacking a policeman for which he went to jail a few times.

The courts just released Salach again today, following an incitement speech last week, with a restraining order of not to get within 30 kilometers of Jerusalem for the next 180 days.

Politically-motivated rapes should be considered by Israel to be acts of terrorism en par with injuries caused by qassam rockets, rock-throwing, and suicide bombings.

As we speak, a young 19-year-old Israeli woman who was gang raped and beaten up at the tender age of 13 by four nationally-motivated Palestinians is appealing a decision made by the Israeli Defense Ministry, which claimed that her case should not be considered an act of terrorism. While everyone is speaking about the indecent remark made by the judge—who subsequently resigned from his post—Nissim Yeshaya, who had stated that “some girls enjoy getting raped,” not enough people are questioning the Israeli Defense Ministry for not classifying her case as an act of terrorism to begin with.

According to the National Insurance Institute of Israel website, a hostilities-related injury should include “an injury resulting from an act of violence whose purpose was to harm people because of their national or ethnic origin, provided that it arises from the Israeli-Arab conflict or was committed by a terrorist organization.”

According to the U.S. State Department and Title 22 of the U.S. Penal Code Section 265, terrorism is “politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets by sub-national groups or clandestine agents.” As an Israeli woman, I find myself asking, how can one not include a group of politically-motivated Palestinian men deciding to gang-rape a Jewish child specifically because of her national origin, as an act of terrorism?

If a Palestinian rapes a Jewish woman to fulfill some animistic desire and lacks political intentions, then I could understand why it wouldn’t be classified as terrorism, although in my view it is a travesty of justice for rapists to merely serve two years in prison, as was set to happen in this case. Rape is a crime that can emotionally destroy a woman for years into the future. Many rape victims, if not given the proper therapy, and especially if they were raped at a young age, find it very difficult to function due to the trauma that they experienced. For this reason, rapists deserve much more time in prison than two years, regardless of what age they were when they committed the crime.

But when rape is politically-motivated by antisemitism, the punishment for such a crime should be en par with terrorism. In this particular instance, there was convincing evidence that these four Palestinians targeted this Jewish child specifically for her ethnicity. This young Jewish girl was literally dragged off the streets of Jerusalem at random, where she was beaten up and gang raped in such a humiliating manner that only someone motivated by racial hatred would behave in such a way. So if it is established that political motives are involved; then gang rape should be considered an injury en par with being wounded from rock-throwing, qassam rockets, or suicide bombings!

Since the 1929 Hebron Massacre, rape has been an element of Arab terrorism orchestrated against Jewish civilians as part of the Arab-Israeli conflict. More than one case of gang rape committed by Israeli Arab men has been found to be politically motivated. In the Negev and parts of Jerusalem, Arabs sexually harassing Jewish women has become a major issue. Furthermore, in Syria, Iran, and other Muslim countries, rape has been used as a political tool of terrorism in order to silence the political opposition, proving that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not the only instance where rape has been used as a tool of terrorism. There is also international legal precedent for considering rape as part of a political conflict to be a war crime. Given all of this, the Israeli authorities should treat politically-motivated rapes as terrorism, not merely as criminal acts.

For the second time in just over a week, Arabs have poured oil on the main road connecting Highway 60 to Beitar (near Efrat), in the middle of the night.

A little over a week ago, Arabs poured oil on the same road causing a car to spin out of control and crash.

The fire department was sent to clean up the oil.

On Friday, Efrat residents protested the lack of security on that and other roads in Gush Etzion.