JERUSALEM // A Palestinian was shot dead after fatally stabbing a 13-year-old Israeli girl in her bedroom in a settlement in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, the military said.
Israeli guards in the settlement of Kiryat Arba killed the attacker, identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Mohammed Nasser Tarayra, 17, from the village of Bani Naim near the settlement.
Following the attack, the Israeli military sealed off the entrances to the village, and prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his home would be destroyed and permits enabling his relatives to work in Israel revoked.
The hospital identified the slain girl as Hallel Yaffa Ariel. She was a cousin of Uri Ariel, a cabinet minister from the Jewish Home, a party affiliated with the West Bank settler movement. The minister later said Israel would make “every effort” to build up settlements in the West Bank.
Malachi Levinger, chairman of Kiryat Arba’s governing council, said the assailant climbed a security fence to enter the home.
Israeli security forces have had a difficult time stopping the attackers, in large part because they have tended to be young “lone wolf” assailants, often in their teenagers or early 20s, acting on their own and not sent by organised militant groups.
Adnan Tarayreh, a cousin of the assailant, said Mohammed had dropped out of school and was working in a bakery. He said the family was surprised by Mohammed’s attack and speculated that the teen may have been spurred to action after the death of a cousin who was killed while attempting to ram Israelis in Kiryat Arba.
The military said private Israeli security guards at the settlement had fired at Mohammed as he tried to flee the attack scene. One guard was stabbed before the assailant was killed, and remained in a serious condition.
Photographs circulated by the Israeli government showed a pool of blood in a colourful children’s bedroom in Kiryat Arba, a hardline Jewish settlement located near the Palestinian city of Hebron that has been a focal point of the current wave of violence.
The city has several hundred Jewish settlers living in a tightly guarded enclave in the heart of the city of well over 200,000 Palestinians, a persistent source of tensions.
Since October last year, at least 211 Palestinians, 33 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have been killed in a spate of deadly unrest.
Palestinian street attacks no longer occur on a near-daily basis but even less frequent incidents, such as a shooting that killed four people in Tel Aviv on June 8, have kept Israelis on edge.
Palestinian leaders say assailants have acted out of desperation over the collapse of peace talks in 2014 and Israeli settlement expansion in occupied territory that Palestinians seek for an independent state. Most countries view the settlements as illegal but Israel disputes this.
Mr Netanyahu called on Palestinian leaders to condemn the attack and take immediate steps to stop what he described as incitement that Israel has cited as a main factor behind a string of assaults over the last nine months.
“The horrific murder of an innocent girl in her bed sheds light on the bloodlust and lack of humanity displayed by the terrorists we are facing,” he said.
Tensions over Jewish access to a contested Jerusalem holy site, revered by Muslims as Haram Al Sharif and Jews as Temple Mount, have also fuelled the violence.
* Agencies
