Arkan Khaled, 27, suspected of carrying out the car-ramming attack at the entrance to Kfar Yona on Thursday in which 11 people were injured, was captured Saturday after being found on a crane at a nearby construction site. The Ramla Magistrate’s Court extended his detention on Sunday by four days.
“For days, we had been conducting a wide-scale manhunt to capture the suspect,” said Chief Superintendent Shay Ben Baruch, who took part in the search. “It was a complex operation involving a large number of police officers, the Sharon District Commander, Chief Superintendent Eli Pinto, Border Police forces, and many volunteers in the area.”
Ben Baruch, who also serves as the regional coordinator for the Lev HaSharon Regional Council and the settlements unit of Central Border Police, described how the suspect was finally caught: “We had already searched the area around the construction site several times since Thursday morning. Then, yesterday afternoon, a decision was made to check it again. I entered with a large force, and suddenly we felt drops of water falling on us from above. We didn’t understand where they were coming from.”
He continued: “We looked up again, in the direction of the dripping water, and saw him next to the crane—just sitting there. He was hiding. The suspect shouted down at us. We saw him clearly. Our forces climbed up, secured him, and then stripped him to ensure he wasn’t carrying any weapons. He was then taken for further questioning.”
Footage from the arrest
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The capture followed an intensive manhunt launched on Thursday. “That dripping water, in a place we had searched again and again, stood out as strange—and when we looked up, there he was,” said Ben Baruch. “From that moment, capturing the suspect happened very quickly. Many forces climbed up and arrested him.”