The Israel Police on Thursday arrested a suspect in the Jan. 1 assault of Netanel Avitan, a rabbi at Jaffa’s Shirat Moshe Hesder Yeshivah and Israel Defense Forces reservist.
The suspect, identified as a Jaffa resident in his 20s, was located through “technological means and intensive operational activity,” police stated.
“Investigators succeeded in locating the suspect and arresting him at his home,” according to the statement. “During a search conducted in the complex where the suspect resides, a handgun and ammunition were seized that were being held in violation of the law,” police added.
Avitan was attacked while walking on Yefet Street shortly before 7 p.m. on New Year’s Day. He was punched in the face and knocked to the ground, after which his assailant fled.
The rabbi, who was wounded fighting in Gaza, claimed the suspect shouted, “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” during the attack.
Magen David Adom medics treated Avitan for facial and back injuries at the scene and evacuated him with light injuries to Sourasky Medical Center’s Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, where he was hospitalized.
In related news, police arrested a Palestinian from the Judea city of Hebron who posed as a food delivery man and removed dozens of mezuzot from buildings across the Jaffa and Bat Yam areas, it said.
A mezuzah (“doorpost” in Hebrew) is a piece of parchment inscribed with verses from the Torah, held in a case that is attached to the right doorframe of an entrance and in all of the rooms of a residence.
During an overnight police operation on Wednesday, the suspect, who was illegally residing inside Israel’s pre-1967 lines, was located in an abandoned building in Jaffa, where he was observed meeting with a second infiltrator, according to the police statement on Thursday.
“Detectives arrested the suspects and, during a search, seized evidence linking the main suspect to the crimes attributed to him,” it continued.
The two suspects, both in their 20s, were transferred for questioning.
Approximately 40,000 Arabs living in Palestinian Authority-controlled areas in Judea and Samaria enter pre-1967 Israel via the country’s porous security barrier every month, per official estimates.
While most Palestinians who cross the security fence do so in search of employment, others have the goal of gathering intelligence for carrying out terrorist attacks, or to carry out terrorist assaults themselves.
