The Israeli Batsheva Nagari (40) was killed this Monday in a Palestinian armed attack in the Hebron area, in the southern West Bank. The attack, which also caused serious injuries to another Israeli, is in addition to the one carried out less than 48 hours earlier at a car wash in Hawara, in the north of the West Bank, when a Palestinian shot and killed two Israelis – father and son. from the southern city of Ashdod. The perpetrators of the two armed attacks managed to flee and are wanted by Israeli security forces in the West Bank.
“These are difficult and painful days for the people of Israel. (…) they always knew how to unite, be determined and responsible and support the armed and security forces in the incessant fight against terrorism. Our enemies will not be able to defeat us” , President Isaac Herzog has reacted.
At mid-morning this Monday, a vehicle in which Nagari was traveling was the target of more than 20 shots fired from another car on Highway 60 between Palestinian towns and Israeli settlements. The driver, Ari Gotlib (39), was seriously injured and was taken to Soroka Hospital (Beer Sheva) while the woman died almost instantly. One of her three daughters, 12 years old, was in the back seat of the vehicle and was unharmed in the attack. The victim was a childminder in Efrat, where she was headed this Monday. They were all neighbors in the Beit Hagai settlement located south of Hebron, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank.
“The murder of Bat Sheva Nagari before her daughter’s eyes in the horrific shooting attack is shocking and heartbreaking,” Herzog said. Numerous military forces arrived at the scene and began the search for the perpetrators of the attack, establishing various checkpoints in the Hebron area. It is believed that it was the work of two Palestinians, the driver and next to him, who fired in an increasingly frequent action in the last year in the West Bank.
Several leaders of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank have demanded that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu “act immediately and forcefully to put an end to Palestinian terrorism that kills innocent men, women and children every day.” Their demands are addressed to the military leadership and the Government. The deadliest wave of attacks in the past 20 years comes in the first eight months of the most right-wing coalition in Israel’s history. Two of the parties that are part of the Government – led by the ultranationalists Bezalel Smotrish and Itamar Ben Gvir – received many votes in the elections last November by the Israeli inhabitants in the colonies of the West Bank territory occupied in the 1967 war. other reasons and, like Netanyahu’s Likud, for his promises “to restore security” after the attacks during the government of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.
Several of the ministers and deputies of these parties support the criticism against Netanyahu and especially the Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, and ask to block the Palestinian areas where the attackers come from the most, to carry out military operations such as the one carried out against the militias in the countryside of refugees from Jenin in early July and expand construction in the settlements. Likud leaders reject criticism from their own coalition. In any case, Netanyahu has brought forward to this Sunday the meeting of the mini security cabinet that was scheduled for September 10. “We are under a terror offensive encouraged, guided and financed by Iran and its ilk,” he declared. The armed wing of Al Fatah – a movement led by Palestinian President Abu Mazen – has assumed responsibility for the attack on Monday.
As happens after every attack, the Islamist group Hamas was quick to applaud the action. “The courageous resistance has struck again and shows that it can do so in various ways and on all fronts,” said Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem, referring to the fact that the last two attacks with different methods were carried out in the north and southern West Bank. “Our people will continue to defend the Al Aqsa Mosque and their Arab and Muslim identity. We will not allow the occupation (Israel) to achieve its goals and attack us,” he added.
“This is a heroic action against criminal settlers in southern Hebron and the natural response to the occupation’s crimes against our people,” the Islamic Jihad militia said, denouncing both the soldiers and the settlers. Faced with the gradual loss of control of the security forces of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Hamas and Islamic Jihad consolidated their armed presence in the northern West Bank in the last year, especially in Jenin and Nablus. The two Palestinian groups receive economic and armed support from Iran, the great enemy of the Jewish state.
Israel has aborted several hundred significant Palestinian attacks since the beginning of the year, security sources say. The Israeli army, with at least 20 battalions deployed in recent months in the West Bank, must also deal with attacks carried out by Israeli extremists, especially after each deadly attack in which they “retaliate” by attacking Palestinian civilians and property.
In the afternoon, Israeli soldiers entered a Palestinian village near Nablus looking for one of those responsible for the attack last Saturday in neighboring Hawara. The action led to riots in which eight Palestinians were injured, including one critically, by Israeli fire. At the same time, several hundred people from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip approached the border with Israel and threw stones and Molotov cocktails at the military deployed on the other side of the border fence, who responded with riot control and live ammunition. . 18 Palestinians were injured and several were detained when they tried to infiltrate Israeli territory.
