Settler Acted Alone in Massacre, Israeli Panel Reportedly Finds

An inquiry commission found that Jewish settler Baruch Goldstein acted alone when he killed Muslim worshipers in February’s Hebron mosque massacre, Israeli newspapers reported Friday.

Testimony by Palestinian witnesses and some Israeli army guards had suggested that there was a second gunman or that Goldstein had an accomplice in the Feb. 25 blood bath at the Cave of the Patriarchs. At least 30 Muslim worshipers died and scores were wounded at a site sacred to Muslims and Jews before the crowd killed Goldstein.

The five-member commission of three judges, a professor and a retired general is to publish its findings Sunday, but the contents of the report have already been leaked extensively.

The commission is not seeking criminal indictments, but criticized senior army officers for ignoring intelligence warnings about possible violence by Jewish extremists against Palestinians, the Yediot Aharonot and Haaretz newspapers said.

The commission also found that law enforcement against Jewish settlers in the occupied lands has been too lax, the dailies said.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who also testified before the panel, shouldered some of the blame. As defense minister, Rabin is directly responsible for the occupied lands.

“Steps that were taken were not sufficient, including by groups that I am in charge of,” Rabin said in remarks published Friday.

In other findings, the commission said soldiers did not fire on worshipers fleeing the massacre site and did not intentionally block the evacuation of wounded.