A Palestinian man infiltrated an IDF army post outside the town of Beit El in southern Samaria on Friday morning, bashing the head of an Israeli soldier with a rock and seriously injuring him before fleeing to a nearby Arab enclave. Reports say he was also stabbed at close range.
According to reports from the Israel Defense Forces, the terrorist broke into the position just outside Ramallah. A fight ensued between the infiltrator and a soldier, during which the attacker smashed his head with a rock.
The 21-year-old soldier was evacuated to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in serious condition, unconscious and hooked up to a ventilator. Doctors said his condition was life-threatening.
The attack took place just a few miles from a shooting attack on Thursday at a bus stop near Givat Asaf junction, which claimed the lives of two IDF soldiers—Cpl. Yosef Cohen and Sgt. Yuval Mor Yosef—and seriously injured two others, as well as a drive-by shooting at a bus stop outside of Ofra on Sunday, which wounded seven and claimed the life of a baby whose pregnant mother was shot.
Another soldier, Netanel Ilan ben Sheina Tzipporah, was listed in very serious condition on Friday morning, after being shot in the head in the attack that killed Cohen and Mor Yosef.
The area is now under a manhunt for the attacker, as well as for several Palestinians from the attacks of the previous week.
Late Wednesday night, Israeli security forces killed Salih Omar Barghouti, who was wanted for the shooting outside Ofra, as well as Ashraf Walid Suleiman Na’alwa, who killed two Israelis in October at the Barkan Industrial Park.
Hamas later claimed Barghouti as a member of its terror organization and called his attack on the Ofra commuters’ post “heroic.”
Security forces arrested an additional 40 Palestinians in connection with the recent attacks and for subsequent riots overnight on Friday.
According to the IDF, 37 of them are Hamas operatives.
