Israeli media sites yesterday quoted a “religious edict” issued by Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel Yitzhak Yosef encouraging the killing of any Palestinian armed with a knife.

“If a terrorist comes at someone with a knife, it is a (religious) duty to kill him – he who comes to kill you, kill him first,” he said on Saturday.

“Don’t get all afraid of the courts, or if some chief of staff says something else,” in reference to Lieutenant General Gadi Eisenkot who had called for Palestinians to be disarmed.

“When there’s a 13-year-old girl holding scissors or a knife and there is some distance between her and the soldiers, I don’t want to see a soldier open fire and empty his magazine at a girl like that,” the general said.

(MAAN)