February 05, 2018: Itamar Ben Gal, 29, was killed in a stabbing attack outside an entrance to ‘Ariel’ settlement in the central part of the West Bank.
According to Israeli sources, surveillance video shows the assailant getting off of a shared taxi near the entrance to Ariel, the largest Israeli settlement in the West Bank.
The assailant then allegedly approached Ben Gal, who was standing at a hitchhiking post for Israeli settlers, and stabbed him several times before fleeing.
Following the killing of the Israeli settler, Israeli forces carried out a wide-scale search campaign in several villages and towns located to the north of Salfit, blocked roads and declared these areas to be closed military zones, according to local sources.
Ben Gal taught at two religious Jewish seminaries, both of them located in Israeli settlements: one in Givat Smuel, and the other in Har Bracha settlement, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.
Ben Gal was transferred to hospital, with critical injuries in his upper extremities, where he succumbed to his wounds shortly after.
The Israeli daily, Haaretz, reported that Abdul-Hakim’s mother is from Haifa, while his father is from Nablus, in the northern West Bank.
In the aftermath of the fatal stabbing, dozens of Israeli paramilitary settlers gathered along roads in the area around Salfit, and the entrances to the villages of Hares and Kifl Hares, and attacked passing Palestinian cars with stones.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement following the death of the settler, saying that Israeli military forces “are in pursuit of the murderers. We will exact our judgment.”
The Hamas party also issued a statement, saying the attack is a direct response to Donald Trump’s unilateral declaration of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel — a declaration that effectively denies the existence of over a million Palestinians who live in Jerusalem.
Itamar was from Har Bracha settlement, in the northern part of the West Bank. Source: IMEMC