PM: We will bring Hebron terrorists to justice

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Friday afternoon that Israel would hunt down those responsible for killing an Israeli father and son in a terror attack near the West Bank city of Hebron a short time earlier. Hamas praised the attack as a welcome step up in the intensity of the ongoing attacks against Israelis.

“We will get to these heinous murderers and we will bring them to justice as we have done in the past,” the prime minister said, vowing that Israel would continue to fight terror wherever necessary. He also sent condolences to the family of the victims.

The Magen David Adom rescue service received a report of gunshots fired at a car near Otniel Junction in the southern West Bank a little before 3 p.m. on Friday. Paramedics arrived to find two Israelis critically injured, and subsequently pronounced them dead at the scene. The mother of the family and a second son were also hurt by gunfire; the family’s three daughters suffered shock.

Members of Har Hevron Regional Council called on the government to use every means at its disposal in order to halt the wave of terror, Channel 2 said. They also accused the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service of failing to help the dead and wounded; Israel was investigating reports that a Red Crescent ambulance was first on the scene, but sped away when it was realized that the victims were Jews.

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon said that the security forces were conducting an extensive search for the terrorists.

“We will not rest until we catch them and those who sent them, if they exist,” he said. “The security forces are making every effort to capture terrorists before they carry out their attacks. We will act decisively, responsibly and judiciously for the security of Israel’s citizens.”

MK Avigdor Liberman, the hawkish head of the opposition Yisrael Beytenu party, said the attack was due to failed government policy of containment, Channel 2 reported.

“The leaders of Hamas in Gaza know that the prime minister and the defense minister have granted them immunity and no one will hurt them, and this is the outcome,” he said.

“Again the quiet of a Friday afternoon, on a beautiful sunny day like today, is shattered by terrorism and killing in a horrendous attack,” said Zionist Union MK Merav Michaeli. “This wave of terror, which has lasted for weeks now, is not going anywhere and continues to claim victims, so painfully and unjustly.”

Meretz leader Zehava Galon wrote on Facebook that the victims of the attack were “additional victims of the wave of terror and desperation. I sympathize with the family and hope the terrorist will be promptly caught and put on trial.”

Galon attacked the policy of the prime minister, saying that Israel “must take the reins from the person who is unwilling and incapable of offering us a different future, a person afraid to do everything possible so that we do not live forever on our swords.”

Her comment referred to comments made by Netanyahu in late October, when he reportedly said during a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee session that “for the foreseeable future” Israel must control the West Bank in its entirety and that “I am being asked if we shall forever live on our sword, the answer is yes.”

Hamas, which has a minor foothold in the West Bank but has been agitating for an increase in attacks on Israelis by West Bank Palestinians, welcomed the attack as a “quality development in the intifada.”

Writing on its official website, the Gaza-based terror group wrote: “We welcome the brave action carried out by the resistance south of Hebron. It signifies a quality development in the ‘Al-Quds’ intifada and proves that the resistance can deter the occupation, which only understands the language of force.”

The Islamic Jihad terror organization said the attack was a response to an IDF arrest raid Thursday at a hospital in Hebron, in which a relative of a suspected terrorist the troops sought to detain was shot dead.

The attack brings to 15 the number of Israelis killed in the current cycle of Palestinian terror and violence, which flared up during the Jewish New Year holiday in September. Numerous Israelis have also been wounded in the car-ramming, shooting and knife attacks that have struck primarily in Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Dozens of Palestinians have been killed or injured, the vast majority while carrying out attacks or attempted attacks or in clashes with Israeli security forces.