On Thursday, the day of celebrations for the 74th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel, two assailants killed three Israelis and injured four others in the town of Elad.
Israeli forces captured on Sunday, after more than 48 hours of a vast manhunt, two Palestinians suspected of having perpetrated an attack Thursday in Elad in central Israel that claimed the lives of three Israelis.
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« The two terrorists who murdered three Israeli civilians in the attack in the city of Elad have been arrested“, said the police, the army and the Shin Beth, the internal security service, in a joint statement. They were found near the city of Elad, located near the metropolis of Tel Aviv.
On Thursday, the day of the celebrations for the 74th anniversary of the creation of the State of Israel, two assailants killed three Israelis and injured four others in the locality of Elad (center), of which part of the 50,000 inhabitants are ultra Jews -Orthodox.
According to witnesses, the assailants jumped out of a car and started attacking passers-by with axes before fleeing in the same vehicle. It was the sixth attack targeting Israelis since March 22, in Israel and the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by the Israeli army since 1967.
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After the attack, the Israeli police launched a manhunt by releasing the photos and names of two Palestinians suspected of having committed it: they are Assaad Youssef Al-Rifaï, 19, and Sobhi Imed Abou Choukeir, 20, from the village of Roummaneh in the Jenin region of the West Bank.
Israel had also extended until Sunday the closure of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip for « prevent the escape of terroriststo these Palestinian territories.
« Anger»
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett warned that « terrorists and their supporters will pay the priceof Elad’s attack. Palestinian President and leader of the secular movement Fatah Mahmoud Abbas, based in the West Bank, condemned “the killing of Israeli civilians« . But the Palestinian Islamist movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad welcomed an attack « heroicwithout claiming it.
According to them, it was carried out in response to the violence in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the Holy City occupied by Israel since 1967.The operation (in Elad) testifies to the anger of our people at the attacks of the occupation against the holy places. The storming of the Al-Aqsa Mosque cannot go unpunishedwarned Hamas, which controls Gaza, an overcrowded Palestinian enclave that has been under an Israeli blockade for more than 15 years. « The desecration by the occupying forces and Al-Aqsa settler gangs has crossed all red lines“, added the Islamic Jihad.
Status quo
In recent weeks, clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians have left some 300 injured mainly on the esplanade of the Mosques in East Jerusalem. This site, the third place of Islam, houses the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Thursday, after the return of Jewish worshipers to the esplanade, also considered the holiest place in Judaism under its name of Temple Mount, clashes broke out between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police.
Under an unspoken status quo, non-Muslims can go to the esplanade but not pray there. A growing number of Jews are going there, and the fact that some of them are surreptitiously praying there is raising fears that the status quo will be challenged among many Muslims, even though Israel has repeatedly wanted to maintain it.
Read alsoIn Jerusalem, at the heart of the clashes on the esplanade of the mosques
In total, since March 22, 18 people have been killed in anti-Israeli attacks in Israel and the West Bank, carried out by Israeli Arabs and Palestinians.
In the wake of the first attacks, Israeli forces carried out operations in the West Bank, particularly in the Jenin region where the attackers originated. Twenty-seven Palestinians, including attackers, were killed.
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