Three Israelis killed, one hurt when Palestinian opens fire
HAR ADAR, West Bank — Each weekday scores of Palestinians from the surrounding West Bank villages line up at a yellow metal barrier on the edge of Har Adar, an affluent Israeli border community, awaiting entry for work. That quiet routine was disrupted Tuesday when one worker opened fire, killing three Israeli security personnel and wounding a fourth.
The attacker, a resident of the neighboring Palestinian village of Beit Surik who had regularly worked in Har Adar, was armed with a pistol, according to police, and was fatally shot at the scene.
The victims were identified as a border police officer, Sgt. Solomon Gavria, 20, from Beer Yaakov in central Israel, and two civilian security guards, Yusuf Othman of the nearby Arab-Israeli village of Abu Gosh and Or Arish of Har Adar.
Nestled in the pastoral hills northwest of Jerusalem, Har Adar straddles the 1967 boundary, most of it in the occupied West Bank. Known for its patchwork of peaceful communities and daily cooperation and coexistence between Jews and Arabs, the Israeli authorities refer to the area as the “seamline.”
Dozens of Israelis have been killed in a wave of Palestinian stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks that broke out two years ago. In a spate of violence in late July linked to renewed tensions over a Jerusalem holy site, three members of an Israeli family were fatally stabbed in their home in another West Bank settlement, and four Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli security forces in and around Jerusalem.
The attack Tuesday shattered weeks of relative calm. While most of the assailants have been young, single Palestinians, often unemployed, the gunman, identified by the authorities as Nimer Mahmoud Ahmed Jamal, 37, did not fit that profile. A father of four, Jamal had an Israeliissued permit allowing him to work in Har Adar.
Jamal’s motives appeared to be more personal than ideological. A preliminary investigation indicated that Jamal “had significant personal and family problems, including those regarding family violence,” Israel’s Shin Bet internal security agency said in a statement. The agency added that Jamal’s wife fled to Jordan, leaving him with their children.