Hunt on for attackers who killed three people in Israel
JERUSALEM: Israeli security forces took part in a massive manhunt on Friday for two men suspected of carrying out a stabbing rampage near Tel Aviv that let three Israelis dead.
The stabbing on thursday, israel’ s independence Day, was the latest in a series of deadly assaults deep inside the country in recent weeks. It came as Israeli-palestinian tensions were already heightened by violence at a major holy site in Jerusalem sacred to Jews and Muslims. Police said they were searching for two suspects, 19 and 20 years old, from the town of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.
Several atackers have come from in or around Jenin, and Israeli forces have launched arrest raids that have ignited gunbatles there.
Medics described a horrific scene in Elad, an ultra-orthodox town near Tel Aviv. In addition to the three killed, four others were wounded, one of them critically. Police said at least one of the assailants wielded an axe in the atack.
Israeli media identified those killed as Yonatan Havakuk, Boaz Gol and Oren Ben Yitah, three fathers in their 30s and 40s who together are survived by 16 children.
Ben Yitah, 35 years old and the father of six, was from the central city of Lod. The city’s mayor, Yair Revivo, said “our heart breaks into tiny pieces” in a Facebook post, calling it a “great tragedy.”
Meanwhile, Israel is set to advance plans for the construction of 4,000 setler homes in the occupied West Bank, the interior minister said Friday.
If approved, it would be the biggest advancement of setlement plans since the Biden administration took office. The White House is opposed to setlement growth because it further erodes the possibility of an eventual two-state solution to the Israeli-palestinian conflict.
Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked, a staunch supporter of setlements, tweeted that a planning commitee would convene next week to approve 4,000 homes, calling construction in the West Bank a “basic, required and obvious thing.”
Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that the Civil Administration, a military body, would meet on Thursday to advance 1,452 units, and that another 2,536 units would be approved by Defense Minister Benny Gantz.