Naftali Bennett
Naftali BennettIsrael news photo: Flash 90

Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett sent a letter to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday evening, demanding that he reconsider the peace talks with the Palestinian Authority in the wake of the latest attacks on IDF soldiers.

On Sunday, 20-year-old Gabriel (Gal) Kobi of Tirat Hacarmel was murdered by terrorists in the Avraham Avinu neighborhood of Hevron, near the Machpelah Cave. Kobi was shot by the terrorists and later died in the hospital.

The attack comes after the weekend kidnapping and murder of soldier Tomer Hazan at the hands of a PA Arab terrorist who lured him to Samaria, where he murdered him and disposed of his body.

"The Sukkot holiday has become a bloody holiday sponsored by the celebrations of the peace negotiations," wrote Bennett in his letter to Netanyahu.

"There is no doubt that the developments since the beginning of the negotiations require the government to recalculate its path,” he added. “The answer to terrorism should be a war against murderers, not dialogue with those who encourage murderers."

Other members of the Bayit Yehudi reacted to the two murders as well, with MK Nissan Slomiansky saying, "Negotiating out of weakness and coercion and releasing murderers only stimulates the terrorists’ appetite and their hopes to destroy Israel. The results, unfortunately, are two murders in 24 hours.”

MK Motti Yogev, who chairs a Knesset Subcommittee on Judea and Samaria, called on the government to expand Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria in response to the terrorist attacks.

"In Hevron we should expand our permanent security control and sovereignty over the neighborhoods around the Cave of the Patriarchs and the Jewish neighborhoods,” he said. “We should approve the entry of families into the Machpelah House in Hevron and approve a new neighborhood in Samaria in memory of the slain soldier.”

Yogev added, "As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Judea and Samaria and as a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, I will work to implement the expansion of our control in Hevron and stop the release of terrorist murderers, a process that will likely encourage more murders and kidnappings of soldiers. In addition, we must inform ourselves and the entire world that this country belongs to the people of Israel and not to the murderers and those who sent them.”