The Israel Defense Forces launched searches on Saturday evening after a terrorist reportedly hurled an iron rod at civilian vehicles on Route 5, the Trans-Samaria Highway, shattering a windshield.
“IDF forces were deployed to the Az-Zawiya area in the Ephraim Brigade following a report that a terrorist threw an iron rod at a passing vehicle,” the military said. “No injuries were reported; the vehicle was damaged.”
The IDF and Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) officers “are conducting searches and questioning suspects in the area in an effort to locate the attacker,” the statement added.
The Rescuers Without Borders (Hatzalah Judea and Samaria) group said the vehicle was struck near the Palestinian village of Mas-ha, located some 15 miles southwest of Nablus (Shechem) alongside Route 5.
The driver and passengers were treated for anxiety, the NGO stated.
“We heard a boom,” Merav Ben-Avraham, 23, who was a passenger, told Hebrew media outlets on Saturday evening. “We saw the rod in the car, we really panicked and thought it was a terrorist attack. We continued the drive and kept our cool and called the emergency hotline. We were afraid to stop. Now I feel like I survived by miracle and like it could have easily ended differently,” said Ben-Avraham.
The Border Police’s Yamam National Counter-Terrorism Unit detained a Samaria terrorist cell “that intended to plan an attack in the immediate timeframe,” the IDF announced in a separate statement on Sunday.
Five suspects were arrested during the raid in Barta’a, a Palestinian village that borders the Samaria security barrier, the military stated.
Palestinian terrorists targeted Israeli Jews in Judea and Samaria at least 6,343 times in 2024, according to figures published by the Rescuers Without Borders (Hatzalah Judea and Samaria) NGO on Feb. 17.
Twenty-seven Israelis were murdered in Judea and Samaria in 2024, and more than 300 others were wounded, the group said in its annual report.
