(JNS) Israel Defence Forces troops reportedly killed on Tuesday the person who 10 days ago allegedly shot dead at point-blank range brothers Hallel Menachem and Yagel Yaakov Yaniv near Huwara.
The military said that soldiers were conducting a counter-terrorism operation in Jenin, a hotbed of Palestinian terrorism in northern Samaria, when gunmen opened fire on them from a house they had surrounded.
Palestinian media reported five people killed in the exchange.
The reports also said that Israeli troops arrested several wanted suspects in concurrent operations in or around Nablus. The men detained are reportedly the children of the terrorist who gunned down the Yanivs on 26 February while they were stuck in a traffic jam near Huwara.
Hallel Menachem and Yagel Yaakov Yaniv were shot dead at point-blank range 10 days ago
That night, several hundred Jews responded by taking part in vigilante activity in the Palestinian city, with some setting fire to property and engaging in clashes with local Arabs, leaving one person dead.
The rioting was strongly denounced by Israeli leaders, with President Isaac Herzog saying at the time: “Taking the law into one’s own hands, rioting and committing violence against innocents—this is not our way, and I express my forceful condemnation. We must allow the IDF, police and security forces to apprehend the despicable terrorist and restore order immediately.”
Hallel and Yagel Yaniv were laid to rest on 27 February on Mount Herzl.
“There are no words to describe such a disaster,” said Esti Yaniv, the victims’ mother, at the funeral. “Instead of taking children to the [marriage] chuppah, we bury them.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara subsequently paid a condolence call on the Yaniv family in their community of Har Bracha in Samaria.
“If they could, they would murder us all, but they want to uproot us. I say that our answer is to strike at them and deepen our roots,” said the premier, adding: “We have made a series of decisions recently, in the face of an international reality that is not a simple one, to deepen our roots, to deepen settlement and to expand our hold on our homeland. This is the battle in which we find ourselves. These two splendid youths fell in the battle for our homeland.”
Earlier in February, a terrorist attack in Jerusalem’s Ramot neighbourhood claimed the lives of Yaakov Israel Paley, 6, his brother, Asher Menachem Paley, 8, and 20-year-old Alter Shlomo Lederman.
Three days later, Israeli soldier St.-Sgt. Asil Sawaed, 22, died from wounds sustained in a terrorist attack at a checkpoint to Shuafat in northeastern Jerusalem.
On 27 January, seven people were killed and several others were wounded in a terrorist shooting attack at a synagogue in Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighbourhood.
