Over the year and a half between 1999 and 2000, the IDF, seconded by the Shin Bet and the Israeli Border Police, had asked the government to evacuate the tomb. In September 2000, in the wake of Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to the Temple Mount, the Al-Aqsa Intifada broke out, and Nablus turned into conflict zone, in part after its governor's son was shot dead during a clash with Israeli soldiers. The Palestinians targeted the site, reportedly on the grounds that it was better for the shrine to belong to no one than to be appropriated by just one religion, burning the yeshiva to the ground, incinerating its books and painting the dome green, an act which led to retaliation with Jewish vandalism of three mosques in Tiberias and Jaffa. After the death of an Israeli border policeman the head of the IDF's southern command, Brigadier-General Yom-Tov Samia, threatened to resign if the government kept control of the tomb, since retaining control of it was patently illegal. Prime Minister Ehud Barak eventually complied with the request and the site was handed over to the Palestinian police on October 7, 2000. Israeli newspapers framed the return of the site as a humiliating defeat for the nation. The tomb was pillaged and torched by Palestinian protesters hours after its evacuation. The next morning, the bullet-riddled body of rabbi Hillel Lieberman of Elon Moreh, a cousin of Senator Joseph Lieberman, was found on the outskirts of Nablus, where he had gone to check damage to the tomb. Joseph's Tomb embodied a key Zionist theme: the return from exile to one's homeland, and the Palestinian assault has been interpreted as challenging the credibility of claims to the site. The PA began to repair it the next day. Palestinian spokesperson Hanan Ashrawi claimed that Judaism's connection with the tomb was fabricated. The mayor of Nablus Ghassan Shakaa was reported as saying Jewish worshippers would not be permitted to pray there until an international organization or third party determines whether the site is holy to Muslims or Jews.