Israeli security forces on Saturday (April 30th) arrested suspected perpetrators of a deadly attack the day before in the northern occupied West Bank, police said in a statement. Friday evening, two assailants shot and killed an Israeli guard who was on duty in front of one of the entrances to the Israeli settlement of Ariel (north).
The two suspects were arrested with their weapons in the Palestinian village of Qarawat Bani Hassan, northwest of Ariel, the army said.
After shooting the guard, the assailants fled by car and Israeli forces immediately launched a manhunt to find them.
“There is no terrorist who will escape us and with whom we will not settle our accounts (…) Together we will win »Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said in a statement after the announcement of the capture of the two suspects.
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah party, on Saturday. She “was carried out in response to violations committed by the occupation government in Jerusalem”, writes the group in a press release. An allusion to the clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians who have left nearly 300 Palestinians injured for two weeks on and around the esplanade of the Mosques in East Jerusalem, a sector of the Holy City occupied and annexed by Israel. The Esplanade of the Mosques is the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest in Judaism under its name of Temple Mount.
Manhunt in the northern West Bank
During these clashes, the Israeli police deployed on the esplanade to which they control access and also once entered the Al-Aqsa mosque, throwing tear gas, prompting condemnation from Palestinians and Muslim countries. The leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, Yahya Sinouar, threatened on Saturday with a “great battle” against Israel in the event of new ” assault ” Israeli forces in the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Between Friday and Saturday evening, Israeli security forces, which had been reinforced, had embarked on a manhunt in the northern West Bank to find the suspects of the attack on Ariel. The soldiers made arrests and seized weapons in particular in the Palestinian village of Bruqin west of Ariel, and in the refugee camp of Balata, near Nablus, according to the army. A Palestinian in his twenties, Yahya Adwan, was shot dead on the night of Friday to Saturday during one of these search operations, in the locality of Azzoun, about twenty kilometers from Ariel .
Clashes erupted after his funeral on Saturday in Azzoun between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers. Three Palestinians were shot in the legs and hospitalized, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported. The Israeli army has reported a “violent riot”in which dozens of Palestinians attacked soldiers with stones and burning tires.
The death of the guard in the West Bank brings to fifteen the number of people killed in anti-Israeli attacks since March 22. Between March 22 and April 7, fourteen people were killed in attacks inside Israeli territory. In the process, the Israeli army carried out several operations in the West Bank punctuated by deadly clashes. A total of twenty-seven Palestinians and three Israeli Arabs were killed, including attackers.
About 475,000 Israelis live in the West Bank in settlements deemed illegal under international law. More than 2.8 million Palestinians live in this territory.
