Funeral Held for Israeli Father of 1 Killed in West Bank Shooting Attack
Hundreds of people gathered on Friday morning at the West Bank outpost of Homesh for the funeral of a 25-year-old father of one who was killed the night before while leaving the area after Palestinian gunmen fired on the car he was riding in. Yehuda Dimentman of the nearby Shavei Shomron settlement was killed and the two other people in the car were injured in the attack; at least 10 bullets were fired at the car at close range. Meanwhile, regular Israeli troops and special forces continued to search the Nablus area for the gunmen.
Homesh was a Jewish settlement in the northern West Bank that was evacuated as part of the 2005 disengagement but has since been remade as an illegal outpost that hosts a yeshiva, or Jewish seminary.
No Palestinian organization immediately took credit for the deadly attack, but Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine praised the attack, calling it “heroic” and a “message.”
“Security forces will catch the perpetrator,” Defense Minister Benny Gantz said in a statement issued after the attack. “We will increase our vigilance and readiness to thwart terror in Judea and Samaria, and will continue to take any measures necessary in facing terror groups in the area.”
The attack, and several other recent attacks by Palestinians on Israelis in east Jerusalem, comes amid a debate in Israel and with the United States over a rise in violence by settlers on Palestinians.