The army says it has caught Palestinians suspected of a deadly attack in the occupied West Bank.
Image source, Reuters
Israel has announced the capture of Palestinian men suspected of carrying out a deadly attack on a car carrying Israelis in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.
An army statement said they had also found the weapon used in the attack.
A 25-year-old passenger, Yehuda Dimentman, was killed and two other occupants were wounded in the shooting near a Jewish settlement in the north.
The incident follows a recent spike in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.
Israeli media report six Palestinian men were detained in total, including two thought to have carried out the shooting and four who allegedly helped them. The IDF meanwhile said on Twitter that four suspects were being held.
The Israeli security service Shin Bet believes that at least two of the arrested men are members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett tweeted a photo of himself inside a security service control room as the suspects were detained.
Addressing Yehuda Dimentman’s family, he wrote that “the pain is enormous, but terrorism will not win and will not move us from our place.”
The Israeli military said the victims were ambushed on Thursday as their vehicle left a religious seminary at Homesh, a so-called outpost settlement, one of a type built without government authorisation.
Israeli settlements on territory occupied since the 1967 Middle East war are considered illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this. Palestinians claim the land for a hoped-for independent state.
Following the shooting, homes in two Palestinian villages were attacked with stones, one was set on fire and two residents were beaten in what locals say were revenge attacks by Israeli settlers.
Hundreds of mourners gathered at Homesh on Friday morning, where the head of the seminary, Rabbi Elishama Cohen, declared: “[We] will say loudly and clearly that this place is fully ours,” the Times of Israel reported.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, praised the shooting, calling it part of a “legitimate struggle”.
The shooting follows a spate of attacks on Israeli Jews in recent weeks.
Last week in Jerusalem, a 14-year-old Palestinian girl was arrested on suspicion of stabbing her Jewish neighbour. Days earlier, a Palestinian stabbed a Jewish man in the street before being shot dead by Border Police.
Last month, a Hamas gunman killed an Israeli and wounded three others in Jerusalem’s Old City before being shot dead.
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