Suspected Palestinian terrorist attack at Huwara car wash kills 2 Israelis

(AP/A7/TJV) — Two Israelis were killed in a suspected Palestinian terrorist attack on a car wash in a volatile stretch of Samaria , in the village of Huwara on Saturday, the latest outburst of violence to rock the region.

Aviad Nir, 28, and his father Shai Silas Nigreker, 60, have been named as the father and son murdered Saturday afternoon in a shooting attack in Huwara. The pair are both residents of Ashdod.

This is the tenth terror attack in Huwara since the beginning of this year. Six of the terror attacks were shooting attacks, two were ramming attacks, and two were stabbing attacks. Four Israelis have been murdered in Huwara in the past eight months, and eight others were injured – two severely, three moderately, and three lightly.

“In their lives and in their deaths, they were not separated,” Ashdod Mayor Dr. Yehiel Lasry said. “All of Ashdod is mourning this evening, after the Shabbat murder of a father and son, residents of the city, in a horrible shooting attack which stole their lives in such a cruel and criminal fashion.

Initial investigations show that the terrorist arrived on foot to a location on the road where security was not reinforced during Shabbat. The terrorist then entered a car wash, where the pair’s vehicle was parked after the two ran errands in Huwara earlier in the day.

The terrorist identified the pair as Israelis after they spoke in Hebrew, and fired five bullets at them from point-blank range. He then escaped on foot. Later, his weapon was discovered.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “I send condolences to the family of the two murdered victims, a father and son, whose lives were cut short in such a cruel and criminal fashion over Shabbat. Security forces are working with great vigor in order to capture the murderer and bring him to justice, exactly as we have done with all of the murderers until now.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog responded, “This was a sad Shabbat, which ended with great pain, after two people, a father and son, were murdered in a serious terror attack in Huwara. I am sure that the IDF and security forces will lay hands on the despicable murderer. We must not let terror defeat us.”

Gush Etzion Regional Council head and Yesha Council chairman Shlomo Ne’eman responded, “Another shocking murder, again in the murderous village of Huwara. A father and son were murdered just because they were Jews.”

“The authorities in our country can’t just absorb attacks and hope that the wave of terrorism will simply pass. We once again demand that the government make security in Judea and Samaria a top priority and restore deterrence to the region. Our country is at war and we demand that we behave as if we are in a war – only a strong response against the murderers from the Palestinian Authority and their supporters will restore peace in the region. We share in the grief of the Nigreker and Nir families for the death of their loved ones and send our condolences to them and all their relatives.”

The Israeli military said it was searching for suspects and setting up roadblocks near the town of Hawara,  which has seen repeated shooting attacks as well as a rampage by Jewish West Bank settlers who torched Palestinian property.

The shooting attack came after Palestinian official media said a 19-year-old Palestinian died of his wounds following an Israeli military raid recently.

The deaths are part of a relentless spiral of violence that has fueled the worst fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank in nearly two decades.

Israeli paramedics said that when they arrived at the scene at the car wash in Hawara, two Israeli males, aged 60 and 29, were found unconscious with gunshot wounds.

Videos circulating online showed Israeli soldiers walking across a large pool of blood at the car wash to help move two bodies on stretchers to awaiting ambulances.

Several Israelis have been killed in Hawara in the current round of fighting and the death of two brothers, residents of a nearby settlement, set off a rampage by settlers through the town in February. They torched dozens of cars and homes in some of the worst settler violence in decades.

Similar settler mob violence has taken place elsewhere in the West Bank since. Israeli rights groups say settler violence has worsened and that radical settlers have become emboldened because their cause has supporters in important government positions.

The violence in the area has prompted promises of a harsh response from members of Israel’s far-right government and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand settler supporter, called for Israel to “erase” Hawara, a remark he later walked back, saying he meant that Israel should operate surgically within it against Palestinian militants.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government haVE demanded a harder line against the rising tide of Palestinian violence. Saturday’s attack is likely to intensify those demands.

Palestinian militant groups praised the shooting attack, with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine posting statements online congratulating the perpetrators. Hamas spokesman Abdel Latif Al-Qanou called the attack a “heroic shooting operation.”

But the groups stopped short of claiming responsibility for the attack.

In the death of the Palestinian on Saturday, according to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, Mohammad Abu Asab, 19, was shot in the head on Wednesday during an Israeli army incursion into the Balata refugee camp near the northern West Bank city of Nablus. It cited medical officials.

The Israeli military said in its statement Wednesday that a commando unit raided Balata seeking to destroy an underground weapons factory when a gunfight erupted.

Wafa reported that during the fighting, Abu Asab was shot in the head and then taken to the Rafidia hospital in Nablus where he later died from his wounds. Palestinian health officials did not immediately confirm the death.

It was not immediately clear if Abu Asab was affiliated with a militant group and he wasn’t immediately claimed as a member by any group.

Israel has been staging near-nightly raids since last spring in response to a spate of deadly Palestinian attacks.

Israeli says most of the Palestinians killed were militants.

Israel says the raids are meant to dismantle militant networks and thwart future attacks.

Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Some 700,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, while Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.

McNeil contributed from Jerusalem.