Several instances of settler violence reported after deadly terror attack
Four Palestinians said injured, cars damaged in rock-throwing incidents in the Nablus area, where earlier a rabbi was killed by gunman
Palestinians reported several incidents of settler violence in the West Bank Tuesday night, in apparent retaliation after an Israeli rabbi was shot dead in a terrorist attack outside Nablus.
Palestinian cars were pelted with rocks near the Yitzhar and Shiloh junctions south of Nablus, Channel 10 news reported.
Additional stone-throwing incidents were reported in the nearby villages of Asira al-Qibliya, Jalud and Burin. Four people were lightly wounded by the rocks, Palestinians said.
The Israel Defense Forces said it was aware of rock-throwing incidents and that soldiers had dispersed those responsible.
In a tweet, MK Bezalel Smotrich, of the right-wing Jewish Home party, said that “if they don’t want the grieving public to take the law into its own hands, then the system needs to do something” about Palestinian violence.
Israeli troops launched a manhunt in the northern West Bank on Tuesday night, after a fatal terror attack in which Rabbi Raziel Shevach was shot dead while driving down a highway outside Nablus, the army said.
Palestinian media reported that Israeli troops had closed down roads in the area and had begun entering nearby Palestinian villages in a search for the terrorists behind the shooting.
The military confirmed that it had set up road closures around the Nablus area, following a “situational assessment.”
On Twitter, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israeli “security forces will do everything possible in order to reach the foul murderer, and the State of Israel will bring him to justice.”
In a rare move, the Hamas terrorist group’s military wing released a statement praising the attack, calling it “heroic” and a sign of future attacks to come, though the organization did not take responsibility for the shooting.
Shevach was shot in the neck, but managed to call his wife and tell her to call an ambulance. Civilian and military medics rushed to the scene and tried to stop the bleeding as they took him to Kfar Saba’s Meir Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The head of the local settler council, Yossi Dagan, harshly criticized the government for failing to install security cameras in the area.
“If they had been (installed), these vile murderers would have been caught. Raziel was killed near the community of Havat Gilad, where there are no security apparatuses, despite repeated requests from my regional council,” Dagan said in a statement.
