2 Palestinian doctors and a nurse arrested as suspects in deadly West Bank shooting
Trio detained by security forces in Ramallah area, said to admit involvement in attack that killed East Jerusalem Palestinian
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
Two Palestinian doctors and a nurse from the West Bank were identified Monday as the suspects in a deadly shooting the day before that killed an East Jerusalem Palestinian man and seriously injured a woman.
Officers in the police’s Yamam counterterrorism unit arrested the three suspects overnight, security officials said Monday.
In a joint statement, the police, Shin Bet, and Israel Defense Forces said the trio were detained some 15 hours after the attack on Route 465, near the West Bank settlement of Ateret.
Two of the suspects were detained in Ramallah, and the third was nabbed in the nearby Jalazone refugee camp, the statement said.
Palestinian media identified them as Aysar Barghouti, an anesthesiologist from Ramallah, Khaled al-Kharouf, also a medical doctor, and Murad Dahadhah from ‘Atara, who worked as a nurse.
Israeli security officials are still assessing that the shooting was carried out with nationalist motives, meaning it is considered a terror attack, the Ynet outlet reported.
פיגוע הירי בבנימין | מקורות פלסטינים: כוחות הביטחון עצרו באזור רמאללה 3 חשודים בביצוע הפיגוע שבו נרצח עמאר מנסור – הרופא המרדים איסר אל-ברגות'י, הרופא ח'אלד אל-ח'ארוף ומריד אל-עטארי שמשמש כאח במקצועו pic.twitter.com/hBtzS7CWyb
— ספיר ליפקין | Sapir Lipkin | سابير ليبكين (@sapirlipkin) January 7, 2024
Officials said the three “implicated themselves” in the attack in preliminary interrogation. They were handed over for interrogation to the Shin Bet security service.
Amar Mansour, a 33-year-old resident and father of two from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, was killed in the Sunday shooting.
הנרצח בפיגוע הירי הבוקר בבנימין: עמאר מנסור, בן 33 מבית חנינא. אב ל2 ילדים.
אישה שהייתה איתו נפצעה, ופונתה לבית חולים ברמאללה ע״י פלסטיני שעבר במקום pic.twitter.com/2xAGk0xmvt— Carmel Dangor כרמל דנגור (@carmeldangor) January 7, 2024
A 42-year-old woman, a pharmacist at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, was seriously injured in the attack after attending a Christmas celebration in Ramallah and was taken to a hospital in the city by passing Palestinian medics.
She was then transferred to Hadassah, where she underwent treatment for injuries to her neck and face, the hospital said in a statement.
The shooting appeared to be the first deadly terror attack in the West Bank since November, though there have been several attempted attacks in that period. On December 31, two guards were injured in a stabbing at the entrance to the Mishor Adumim industrial zone, during which the assailant managed to grab a semi-automatic rifle.
It was also the latest of a series of incidents outside the northern quadrant of the West Bank, where much of the violence has been concentrated in recent years. Army raids have largely focused on Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem, where they have attempted to uproot terror movements that had gained footholds.
