Israeli forces on Sunday captured, after more than 48 hours of an extensive manhunt, two Palestinians suspected of killing three Israelis with an ax on Thursday in the town of Elad in central Israel.
“The two terrorists who murdered three Israeli civilians during the attack in the town of Elad have been arrested,” the police, army and Shin Beth, the internal security service, said in a joint statement.
After the attack on Thursday evening, the police launched a manhunt by releasing the photos and names of two Palestinians suspected of having committed it: Assaad Youssef Al-Rifaï, 19, and Sobhi Imed Abou Choukeir, 20 years old, from the village of Roummaneh in the Jenin region of the occupied West Bank.
According to witnesses, the assailants jumped out of a car and started attacking passers-by with axes before fleeing in the vehicle. Three Israelis were killed and four injured, one of whom is in critical condition.
It was the sixth attack targeting Israelis since March 22, in Israel and the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by the Israeli army since 1967.
– Banknotes stained with blood –
The suspects were found near the town of Elad, located near the metropolis of Tel Aviv.
An Israeli military official said on condition of anonymity that banknotes bearing bloodstains that the suspects allegedly dropped during their escape helped find them.
The suspects surrendered and made confessions during the first interrogations, according to the same source.
They had entered Israel through a porous separation barrier from the West Bank hours before the attack, the military source added.
On Sunday evening, a Palestinian who tried to enter Israel through the separation barrier from the occupied West Bank was killed by the Israeli army, the army said.
In a statement, she said she had « identified a (person) trying to pass the security barrier (…) near Tulkarem ». Soldiers « shot him according to the procedures ». A spokesman for the Israeli Sheba Hospital later told AFP that the Palestinian had died of his injuries.
The attack in Elad on Thursday took place on the day of the celebrations for the 74th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, which for the Palestinians represents a “Nakba” (“catastrophe”, in Arabic) and is synonymous with exodus for hundreds of thousands of them.
Palestinian President and leader of the secular movement Fatah Mahmoud Abbas, based in the West Bank, condemned « the killing of Israeli civilians », after the attack which was not claimed.
For their part, Hamas – an Islamist movement that controls the Palestinian enclave of Gaza under Israeli blockade – and Islamic Jihad for their part hailed a « heroic » attack, saying it was a consequence of tensions around the Esplanade of the Mosques in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the Holy City occupied by Israel.
Reacting to the arrest of the two suspects, the Islamic Jihad assured Sunday that it would not « discourage the fighters (…) to continue the fight against the Israeli occupation » of the Palestinian territories.
– Status quo –
In recent weeks, clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians have left some 300 injured mainly on the esplanade of the Mosques in East Jerusalem. This site, the third place of Islam, houses the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Thursday, after the return of Jewish worshipers to the esplanade, also considered the holiest place in Judaism under its name of Temple Mount, clashes broke out between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police.
Under an unspoken status quo, non-Muslims can go to the esplanade but not pray there.
A growing number of Jews are going there, and the fact that some of them are surreptitiously praying there is raising fears that the status quo will be challenged among many Muslims, even though Israel has repeatedly wanted to maintain it.
In total, since March 22, 18 people have been killed in anti-Israeli attacks in Israel and the West Bank, carried out by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.
In the wake of the first attacks, Israeli forces carried out operations in the West Bank, particularly in the Jenin region where the attackers originated. Twenty-eight Palestinians, including attackers, were killed.
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