The 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs Massacre, an Attack on Ramadan Prayers

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

A shooting attack on 25 February 1994 struck inside the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, a shrine sacred to both Judaism and Islam as the burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, where Baruch Goldstein, an American-born Israeli physician and adherent of the Kach movement, opened fire on Muslim worshippers gathered for Ramadan dawn prayers. The attack fell on Purim in the Jewish calendar and during Ramadan in the Islamic one, both faiths observing the shrine that week. Goldstein fired until his weapon jammed and was then overpowered and killed by surviving worshippers before security forces reached the hall.

The Shamgar Commission of Inquiry, led by former Supreme Court president Meir Shamgar, concluded Goldstein planned and acted alone, telling no one of his intentions, and attributed the security failure to poor coordination between the army, police and civil administration rather than to any conspiracy. Days of Palestinian protest and unrest followed across the West Bank and Gaza in the massacre's immediate aftermath.