Oct. 30 (EUROPA PRESS) –
An Israeli citizen has died and four others have been injured by the shots fired by a Palestinian this past Saturday night between the settlement of Kiryat Arba and the West Bank city of Hebron, as confirmed by the Israeli security forces.
According to the Israeli Army, the attacker opened fire at a grocery store near a checkpoint at the entrance to the Givat Avot settlement, near the home of ultra-nationalist Israeli deputy Itamar Ben Gvir. After initially fleeing, he returned to the scene to fire again at the civilians who were treating those injured by the first burst.
The attacker, identified as Muhamad al Jabari, was eventually run over by a vehicle and succumbed to gunshots fired by a security guard.
The deceased Israeli has been identified as a 50-year-old man. Another of the injured is an Israeli doctor who tried to treat the wounded, among whom is also a Palestinian citizen. None of his lives are in danger.
According to the Palestinian media, Al Jabari was linked to the militias of the Islamist movement Hamas. His brother, Waal, had been serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison before being released and deported to the Gaza Strip in military officer Gilad Shalit’s prisoner swap deal in 2011.
The attack has come amid a spike in tension in the West Bank, where different aspects of the conflict against Israel — military operations, police response or settler attacks — have left 32 Palestinians dead and 311 wounded since the beginning of the year, while two Israeli soldiers and 25 civilians have been injured, according to the UN.
This incident also takes place a few days before the legislative elections on November 1 in Israel, where former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could obtain a parliamentary majority thanks to the push of the ultra-nationalists, Ben Gvir among them.
