MIDDLE EAST: Israeli army make arrests in Hebron following axe attack in settlement

Record ID: 353070

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: Israeli army make arrests in Hebron following axe attack in settlement
  • Date: 3rd April 2009
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) UNIDENTIFIED RESIDENT OF HEBRON, SAYING: "The Israeli army told us to leave the house - men, women and children. They said who ever I find in the house I will shoot. This is what happened." PALESTINIAN GIRLS CRYING
  • Embargoed: 18th April 2009 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA5B9P3X5UXG9QQOUUYACGE2B5G
  • Story Text: Spokesperson for Israel's newly appointed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says new government will not tolerate attacks on its citizens, as Israeli troops search the West Bank for attacker who killed an Israeli boy and wounded another.
    The spokesperson for Israel's newly appointed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday (April 2) the Jewish state would not tolerate Palestinian attacks on its communities, while Israeli security forces searched the West Bank in search of a Palestinian who wielded an axe and a knife, killing a 13-year-old Israeli youngster and wounding a seven-year-old boy in an attack on a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
    The incident took place in Bat Ayin, where some 1,000 settlers live, two days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-leaning government was sworn in.
    Israeli police and the Magen David Adom ambulance service have confirmed a 13-year-old youth was killed and the wounded seven-year-old was in serious condition.

    "Today we've seen a senseless act of brutality against innocent children. The new Israeli government will have a zero tolerance policy towards acts of terrorism," said Mark Regev, spokesperson for Netanyahu, to Reuters in Jerusalem, "We refuse to see such attacks as routine, to accept them as routine. The Palestinian leadership must act both in word and in deed to stamp out these terrorist attacks, in order to demonstrate it's commitment to peace and reconciliation."
    Following the attack, women and children were left crying after Israeli security services arrested several Palestinian men in their house in the West Bank town of Hebron.

    "They took the men out of the houses," said one women speaking to Reuters.
    Another resident in Hebron said that the Israeli army threatened to shoot anyone who would not leave their house.

    "The Israeli army told us to leave the house - men, women and children. They said who ever I find in the house I will shoot. This is what happened." he said.
    There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Bat Ayin is near the Palestinian towns of Bethlehem and Hebron.
    A resident of the settlement said he struggled with the attacker and disarmed him, but the man fled.
    In 2002, three residents of the settlement were sentenced by an Israeli court to prison terms ranging from 12 to 15 years for trying to set off a bomb near a Palestinian girls' school in Arab East Jerusalem.
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