A Jewish man and woman who were all police officers were murdered Sunday morning in a shooting attack on Rt. 35, near the village of Idna in the south of Mount Hebron. A third man who was critically wounded died of his injuries shortly thereafter.
The terrorists opened fire on an Israeli vehicle on Route 35 and then abandoned their own vehicle east of the Tarqumiya Checkpoint. A lockdown was imposed on the village of Idna.
Israeli military forces have eliminated at least one of the terrorists.
The three victims of the ambush include: Police Superintendent Arik Ben Eliyahu, 37, from Kiryat Gat, who leaves behind a wife and three children, parents, and two sisters;
Chief Superintendent Hadas Berentz, 53, from Sde Moshe, who leaves behind a husband and three children, parents, and five siblings; and
Sergeant Major Roni Shakuri, 61, from Sderot. Shakuri was the father of Chief Sergeant Mor Shakuri, who fell in the battle for the Sderot police station on October 7, 2023. He leaves behind a wife, a daughter, a granddaughter, and three brothers.
“The Israel Police will stand by the bereaved families and support them forever,” a spokesperson said.
HaKol Hayehudi reported Elchanan Groner tweeted Sunday morning: “It’s difficult, but it needs to be said: the blood of those murdered this morning on Mount Hebron is also on the hands of the heads of the army and the Shin Bet, who refused, even after the car bomb attacks on Friday night, to shut enemy traffic hermetically on Mount Hebron and bring back the checkpoints. The residents are crying again and again for the checkpoints to be returned, but the senior officials of the system have shut their ears. How long will this continue???”
Groner added: “Smotrich and Ben Gvir must turn tables over in the cabinet. Enough!”
Senior MDA paramedic Rafi Sheva reported: “Immediately upon receiving the call about the attack, we took to the air with the helicopter and arrived at a nearby landing site. We joined MDA mobile intensive care units which brought two males in critical condition to the landing site. One of them, a male around 30 years old, was undergoing resuscitation efforts, and after attempts to save him, we had to pronounce him dead at the landing site. The other man, around 50 years old, was also in critical condition. We tried to fight for his life and evacuated him by helicopter while continuing resuscitation efforts in the air until we arrived at the hospital and handed him over to the medical team.”
פיגוע קשה מאוד לפני זמן קצר סמוך לתרקומיא.
מחבלים ירו על רכב משטרתי מטווח קצר pic.twitter.com/IO5TLpK4cl— 🟢or keren (@Wq0oQJmUSfZunt5) September 1, 2024
BDE. So so sad. It’s horrible