Israeli girl, 13, fatally stabbed in her bedroom in West Bank
Palestinian assailant also injured security officer before being shot dead, and two Israelis are stabbed in separate incident in Netanya
Israeli soldiers outside the house where the girl was killed. Photograph: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty
A 13-year-old Israeli girl has been stabbed to death as she slept in her bedroom in the West Bank by a Palestinian youth who was subsequently shot dead.
The victim, Hallel Yaffa Ariel was a US citizen, according to the Department of State. She died shortly after sustaining wounds to her upper torso.
According to early reports, Israeli civilian security officers arrived at her house in the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, next to the Palestinian city of Hebron, shortly after the attack and broke down the door.
One officer was stabbed and seriously injured before another shot the perpetrator dead. Palestinian officials named the assailant as Mohammed Tarayreh, 17, from the nearby village of Bani Na’im.
The Israeli military released a photograph showing Hallel Yaffa Ariel’s blood-stained bedroom. Photograph: @IDFSpokesperson/Twitter
Malachi Levinger, chair of Kiryat Arba’s council, told Army Radio that the perpetrator had climbed over the settlement’s security fence.
Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, called on both the Palestinian leadership and all “enlightened nations” to condemn the killing.
“The horrifying murder of a young girl in her bed underscores the bloodlust and inhumanity of the incitement-driven terrorists that we are facing,” he said.
Netanyahu agreed at an emergency meeting with his defence minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to close off Bani Na’im to all but humanitarian and medical traffic. It was thought likely that the assailant’s family home would be destroyed, a tactic that remains controversial in Israel.
The victim was a cousin of the far-right Israeli minister Uri Ariel, who said Israel would make every effort to build up settlements in the West Bank.
Adnan Tarayreh, a cousin of the assailant, suggested that Tarayreh – who had dropped out of school and was working in a bakery – may have been influenced by a recent incident in which another relative had been shot dead in a car that had rammed into Israelis in Kiryat Arba.
Later on Thursday, a Palestinian man stabbed two Israelis in the coastal city of Netanya, wounding one seriously, before he was shot dead.
Police said the perpetrator was from Tulkarem, a Palestinian town about 12 miles from Netanya, on the other side of the “green line” separating the West Bank from Israel.
The victims of the attack, which took place close to the city’s open air market, were said to be an ultra-orthodox man in his 40s and a woman in her 30s.
The incidents follow dozens of attacks by Palestinians over the past nine months, which have killed 33 Israelis and two Americans. About 200 Palestinians have been killed, the majority identified by Israel as attackers or would-be attackers.
The spate of violent incidents appeared to have abated in recent weeks, though Palestinian gunmen killed four Israelis this month in Tel Aviv’s busy Sarona market.
In Jerusalem, tensions have risen at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount site holy to Jews and Muslims, with Palestinians throwing rocks, one of which lightly injured a 73-year-old Israeli woman.
The violence started after police broke with the practice of recent years by allowing in non-Muslim visitors including tourists during Ramadan, after a relatively calm first 10 days of the holy month. Police have reimposed the visitor ban until Ramadan ends next week.
In separate incidents in the West Bank, five people were killed and at least 16 injured in two overnight intra-Palestinian shootings. Palestinian police said that in one of the incidents a gunman attacked the home of a police officer in the city of Nablus. When other officers arrived to investigate, they came under fire and two were killed.
In the other incident, three Palestinians were killed when a dispute between extended families over a wedding hall in the village of Yaabad spiralled into a shootout.
The spate of violent incidents appeared to have abated in recent weeks, though Palestinian gunmen killed four Israelis this month in Tel Aviv’s busy Sarona market.
In Jerusalem, tensions have risen at the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount site holy to Jews and Muslims, with Palestinians throwing rocks, one of which lightly injured a 73-year-old Israeli woman.
The violence started after police broke with the practice of recent years by allowing in non-Muslim visitors including tourists during Ramadan, after a relatively calm first 10 days of the holy month. Police have reimposed the visitor ban until Ramadan ends next week.
In separate incidents in the West Bank, five people were killed and at least 16 injured in two overnight intra-Palestinian shootings. Palestinian police said that in one of the incidents a gunman attacked the home of a police officer in the city of Nablus. When other officers arrived to investigate, they came under fire and two were killed.
In the other incident, three Palestinians were killed when a dispute between extended families over a wedding hall in the village of Yaabad spiralled into a shootout.
