Young Israeli woman killed in West Bank stabbing attack
Victim named as Hadar Buchris, 21; terrorist at Etzion Junction shot dead by security forces; settler leader calls for lockdown on Palestinian villages
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
An Israeli woman was killed in a stabbing attack at the Gush Etzion Junction, near the West Bank settlements of Efrat and Alon Shvut, on Sunday afternoon.
The woman was administered emergency treatment at the scene before ambulances evacuated her to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in nearby Jerusalem, where she was declared dead.
She was later named as Hadar Buchris, 21, of Safed.
The terrorist was shot and killed by security forces at the scene. The Shin Bet security service later named him as Wissam Tawabte, 34, from Beit Fajjar, a nearby Palestinian village. He did not have previous links to terror activity, the Shin Bet said.
Davidi Perl, the head of the Etzion Regional Council, said the IDF must restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement and close off villages in order to prevent terror attacks in the future.
“We need to close down surrounding villages for a week or two,” Perl told The Times of Israel, pointing to Palestinian cars driving around the Etzion Junction.
The Gush Etzion Junction has seen multiple attacks since the onset of the latest round of Palestinian violence some two months ago, including a shooting attack last Thursday that killed three people.
Earlier Sunday, a Palestinian driving a taxi attempted to run over and stab a group of Israelis near the settlement of Kfar Adumim. One man, 51, was very lightly injured with bruises to his arms, the Magen David Adom rescue service said.
After failing to hit anybody, the driver got out of the car and attacked the group with a knife. The stabber was shot and killed by a civilian, police said.
According to police spokeswoman Luba Samri, the driver was a young man from the Palestinian village of el-Bireh near Ramallah.
Less than an hour earlier, a Palestinian woman with a knife was run over and shot while attempting to stab an Israeli civilian outside Nablus, Israeli officials said.
The attempted attack took place at a junction near the IDF’s Samaria Brigade headquarters in the northern West Bank. The attacker was first run over by former settler leader Gershon Mesika and then shot by security forces at the scene.
“Forces and a bystander responded to the immediate threat, shooting the attacker,” an IDF statement read.
She reportedly died at the scene.
