Amnon Cohen

Lt.-Col. Amnon Cohen, IDF soldier from Kollam Unit “Black hat”, he served in Hebron between 1993 – 2003, as a deputy of the civil administration governor, Colonel Shalom Goldshtein and Colonel Baruch Nagar.

Since the middle of 1999-2003 he was the head of the Hebron district liaison office, the governor of the “Military-Civil Administration”.

His father Baruch Cohen and his mother Esther had lived for 16 years in the Gush Etzion community of Efrat the most biggest and radical settlement near Bethlehem

Amnon has four brothers and one sister. he is the eldest one among them.

His brother Avihu, is a secretary of the most radical and extremist Karmei Tzur settlement which build on the Palestinians land of Halhol and Beit Ummar, near Hebron.

Amnon father had emigrated with his parents and 12 brothers from Tunisia and lived in Beersheba where he met his wife Esther and later came to Efrat to live with his family.

Amnon Cohen is married to a teacher from Beersheba and he still lives there. He has two daughters.

Under his authority the city of Hebron lived under continuous curfew and hundreds of Palestinian houses were destroyed.

In 2002, Amnon signed an order against the Palestinian journalists which prevented them to work in the Hebron area H2 under his authority.

Amnon prevented sick people from reaching the hospitals and the health organizations.

On 19 March, 2001, Baruch Cohen, the father of colonel Amnon was shot in his car while driving from his home to Jerusalem.

This event was exposed in the Israeli media as a terrorist action. The truth however, is that Amnon’s father Baruch, who worked at the Frenkel Elementary School was doing other “private work” of criminal nature with Palestinians and settlers in the West Bank; he had lots of problems with this “private work” as he seldom fulfilled his side of the deals he had with his partners and accomplices.

His death was related to his little known criminal background. The event happened after the Intifada had broken out, and it was convenient to label it as a “terrorist action”. There were many suspicions that Baruch Cohen had been shot by one of his Jewish or Palestinians clients “business” partners.