One Israeli citizen was killed and four others were wounded by gunfire fired by a Palestinian this past Saturday night between the settlement of Kiryat Arba and the West Bank city of Hebron, Israeli security forces confirmed.
According to the Israeli army, the attacker opened fire at a grocery store near a checkpoint at the entrance to the settlement of Givat Avot, near the home of Israeli ultra-nationalist MP Itamar Ben Gvir. After initially fleeing, he returned to the scene to shoot again at civilians attending to those wounded by the first round.
The attacker, identified as Muhamad al-Jabari, was eventually run over by a vehicle and eventually succumbed to the shots fired by a security guard.
The deceased Israeli has been identified as a 50-year-old man. Another of the wounded is an Israeli doctor who attempted to treat the wounded, who also include a Palestinian citizen. None of their lives are in danger.
According to Palestinian media, al-Jabari was linked to the militias of the Islamist Hamas movement. His brother, Waal, had been serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison before being released and deported to the Gaza Strip in the 2011 Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange deal.
The attack has come amid a spike in tension in the West Bank, where different aspects of the conflict against Israel — military operations, police response or settler attacks — have left 32 Palestinians dead and 311 wounded since the beginning of the year, while two Israeli military personnel and 25 Israeli civilians have been injured, according to the UN.
This incident also comes just days before Israel’s November 1 legislative elections, where former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could win a parliamentary majority thanks to the momentum of ultra-nationalists, Ben Gvir among them.
