“And the field, and the cave that is therein, were made sure unto Avraham for a possession of a burying-place by the children of Heth.” Genesis 23:20 (The Israel Bible™)

One year after the investigation began with the eviction of dozens of Jews from two houses near the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, Israeli Police rejected Arab claims the legal documents of sale were forged. The announcement comes two weeks after the United Nations Security Council declared Jewish ownership of land in Hebron illegal, erasing several Bible verses relating the sale of the area to the Jewish Patriarch, Abraham.

The Jewish families were evicted one day after the entered the houses last January by order of then-Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon (Likud), who called them “intruders”, accusing them of a “brazen” breach of the law.

On Friday, the police recommended the court drop the case and allow the Jews to return to their houses. Times of Israel reported that several Palestinians had been detained by the Palestinian Authority (PA) for suspicion of selling land to Jews.

Selling land to Jews is a crime under the PA, and can incur the death penalty. At the same time the Jewish families were being evicted from their homes in Hebron last year, Ezra Nawi, a Jewish far-left activist from the Ta’ayush group and prominent advocate for Palestinian rights, was filmed boasting that he helped the PA identify and kill Palestinians who sold land to Jews.

The first Jew to legally purchase property in Hebron was the Patriarch Abraham, who purchased a cave from Ephron in order to bury his wife, Sarah. This sale, recorded in the Bible, was declared invalid by the recent UN Security Council resolution 2334 that was allowed to pass by President Barack Obama.