Israel hunts Palestinian axe attackers who killed three
A MANHUNT is under way for two Palestinians suspected of killing three Israelis in an axe and knife attack in central Israel.
It happened in the predominantly ultra-Orthodox Jewish town of Elad on Thursday night. Seven others were wounded, two seriously.
It is the latest in a wave of deadly attacks in Israel by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs since late March.
Israel has carried out raids in the occupied West Bank in response.
Israeli police said the Palestinians who carried out the attack in Elad came from the district of Jenin in the northern West Bank.
Crossings into Israel from the West Bank have been closed since Tuesday as a security measure while Israel marked its annual memorial and independence days this week.
The attackers struck in a park in Elad where families had gathered to celebrate Independence Day, and on a main street.
“We were in the synagogue when the warden shouted: ‘Terrorist! Terrorist!’,” an eyewitness named Mordechai Chachmon said, the Times of Israel reported.
“We went outside and we saw [an attacker] running along a path… and hitting anyone in front of him with an axe to the head. Both of [the attackers] were shouting Allahu Akbar [God is greatest].”
A man aged 35 and two 40-year-old men were killed. Two were fathers of five children each and the third a father of six.
The attackers are reported to have fled the scene in a vehicle. Police have set up roadblocks and deployed a helicopter in the search for the suspects.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the attackers would be caught and would “pay the price”.