(Elad) Israeli police launched a manhunt on Friday to try to find two Palestinians suspected of carrying out an attack near Tel Aviv in which three Israelis died.
Posted at 4:11 p.m.
Perpetrated Thursday evening, the day of the 74and anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel, the attack is the sixth to target Israelis since March 22. It occurred in Elad (center), where some of the 50,000 inhabitants are ultra-Orthodox Jews.
Witnesses said two assailants jumped out of a car and began attacking passers-by with axes, killing three people and injuring four before fleeing in the same vehicle.
The police did not specify the circumstances of the attack but released the photos and names of two Palestinians suspected of having committed it: they are Assaad Youssef Al-Rifaï, 19, and Sobhi Imed Abou Choukeir, 20, from the village of Roummaneh in the Jenin region of the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Helicopters and drones hovered over the Elad area after the attack, as police deployed in force stopped and searched cars.
On Friday evening, the security forces were continuing the search in order to “capture the terrorists”, according to a police statement.
Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced that the closure of the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be extended until Sunday in order “to prevent the flight of terrorists” to these Palestinian territories.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned on Twitter that “terrorists and their supporters will pay the price” for the attack. According to his office, the three dead are: Yonatan Habakuk, 44, Boaz Gol, 49, and Oren Ben Yiftah, 35.
“Red Lines”
Four other Israelis were injured, three of them seriously, according to the Israeli emergency services.
The funeral of one of the victims, Oren Ben Yiftah, took place in his city of Lod (center).
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned “the killing of Israeli civilians”. The United States called the attack “particularly heinous”. Jordan also condemned “all forms of violence against civilians”.
But Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad hailed a “heroic” attack, without claiming it, in separate statements.
According to them, it was carried out in response to violence in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the Holy City occupied by Israel since 1967.
“The operation (in Elad) testifies to the anger of our people at the attacks of the occupation against the holy places. The storming of the Al-Aqsa mosque cannot go unpunished,” warned Hamas, which controls Gaza, an overpopulated Palestinian enclave that has been under an Israeli blockade for more than 15 years.
“The desecration by occupation forces and Al-Aqsa settler gangs has crossed all red lines,” added Islamic Jihad.
Violence in the West Bank
In recent weeks, clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians have left nearly 300 injured on the esplanade of the Mosques in East Jerusalem. This site, the third place of Islam, houses the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Thursday, after the return of Jewish worshipers to the esplanade, also considered the holiest place in Judaism under its name of Temple Mount, clashes also broke out between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police.
Under an unspoken status quo, non-Muslims can go to the esplanade but not pray there. A growing number of Jews are going there, and the fact that some of them pray surreptitiously there raises fears that this status quo will be challenged among many Muslims, even though Israel has repeatedly wanted to maintain it.
In total, since March 22, 18 people have been killed in anti-Israeli attacks in Israel and the West Bank, carried out by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.
In the wake of the first attacks, Israeli forces carried out operations in the West Bank, particularly in the Jenin region where the attackers came from. Twenty-seven Palestinians, including attackers, were killed.
On Friday, in new violence in the West Bank, Israeli forces fired rubber bullets in particular to disperse residents protesting against Israeli colonization in the villages of Beita and Kfar Kaddoum. Thirty-eight Palestinians were injured, including two teenagers hit by rubber bullets, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.