Implementing the closure.
Photo: EPA
Manhunt ongoing for Friday shooters
The terrorists who murdered 48-year-old Miki Mark and wounded three other members of the Mark family are still on the run. A tight closure has been placed on Hebron, and IDF forces are searching for the perpetrators.
The terrorists who murdered 48-year-old Miki Mark
and wounded his wife Chava and two of their children are still on the run. IDF forces continue to look for them in Hebron, suspecting that the attackers fled to the area after the incident. The current closure places on the West Bank city is the largest since the kidnapping and murder of the three Israeli teenagers in 2014.
However, the manhunt is mostly intelligence-based at the moment.
Hundreds of soldiers from the Golani and Paratrooper infantry brigades and from the Home Front Commands’ Kedem battalion are implementing the closure. “We have placed a closure on the entire city of Hebron and the village area, in order to disrupt movement and stop the series of attacks. We don’t know where the terrorist squad fled and are now working to find (its members),” said a high-ranking IDF official. Among others, blocks have been placed at the entrances to Halhul, Beit Ummar, and refugee camp Al-Arroub.
Chava Mark, the wife of Miki Mark, is still in serious, but stable, condition following the wounds she suffered at the attackers’ hands. The couples’ daughter Tehila is in moderate condition. Their son Pdaya was lightly wounded in the attack.
Soldiers implementing the closure on the Hebron area. (Photo: EPA)
Hundreds of soldiers from the Golani and Paratrooper infantry brigades and from the Home Front Commands’ Kedem battalion are implementing the closure. “We have placed a closure on the entire city of Hebron and the village area, in order to disrupt movement and stop the series of attacks. We don’t know where the terrorist squad fled and are now working to find (its members),” said a high-ranking IDF official. Among others, blocks have been placed at the entrances to Halhul, Beit Ummar, and refugee camp Al-Arroub.
About 700,000 Palestinians are affected by the closure, which is complete in some places, and partial in others. A total closure has been placed on the town of Bani Na'im, from which the terrorist who murdered 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel in Kiryat Arba on Thursday. The city of Yatta, from which several terrorists have emerged during the current wave of violence that started in October 2015 – the latest of which were the two who perpetrated the deadly attack at Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market, was also tightly closed.
The scene of the deadly Friday attack. (Photo: Reuters)
"One of the reasons for the eruption of attacks is the end of Ramadan, which will conclude next Tuesday. These are days in which there are always more terror attacks,” estimated a senior IDF official, “Another reason is that successful attacks bring about more attacks, in the absence of condemnation by the Palestinian Authority.”
Yoav Zitun, Elior Levy, and Danny Adeno Abebe contributed to this report.
