Armed police officers lay in wait for the attacker as he headed toward a forested area and killed him. Chief Inspector A and Master Sgt. A described this evening (Sunday) the engagement with the gunman and the moment he was neutralized after the shooting attack in the Sharon plain in which Master Sgt. Haim Kalomiti was killed and five others were wounded. “We came from the right side, hid in the bushes and then reached the vehicle and eliminated him,” they said in a conversation with ynet.
Before opening fire on the attacker, they said they heard gunshots likely directed at them. “We have no idea who fired, whether it was the attacker we killed or someone else. We saw one gunman in a vehicle and were afraid another gunman might come out from the bushes. We closed the scene to gain control, approached the vehicle and eliminated him. We neutralized the threat,” they said.
At the start of the incident, the two were at the Tayibe station. Master Sgt. A said: “The district commander declared a terror incident. I immediately went out into the corridor and the officer said ‘there are terrorists’. I went to the duty room, took a long weapon, and we immediately teamed up and drove.” According to him, on the way they understood there was a fatality and that the attacker was driving toward Sal'it. “We have known the area for years and understood where he was heading,” he added.
Chief Inspector A explained: “The response was fast because of our familiarity with the terrain. The response was quick and the incident ended in a short time.” Master Sgt. A added: “At those moments you are alert and ready, you enter a state of readiness and sharpen all your senses. On the way we spoke in the vehicle and coordinated what we would do, and we carried out everything we had learned over the years to avoid being harmed and of course to eliminate the attacker.”
Ilai Salach, deputy security coordinator of Sal'it, said that at the moment of the attack he was with the local security coordinator at the settlement gate. “I was supposed to continue to the industrial zone where Palestinian workers are employed. When I arrived there I received a call from my father saying there was a gunman shooting in the Kochav Yair and Tzur Yitzhak area and that, as it looked, he was heading toward the community,” he said.
He added: “At that moment I called the Emergency Service in Shomron to update them and to alert the forces, and at the same time I called the security coordinator. As soon as he answered he said ‘they are shooting at me at the gate’. At that stage I activated the standby squad and the emergency center and tried to understand what was happening there.” He said the security coordinator went out and opened fire at the attacker, who reversed his vehicle and drove back toward Tzur Yitzhak. “It’s a single road, there is no other way to get there,” he explained.
He said he was not surprised by the attack and that the community had been training for such a scenario for a long time. “We did an exercise a month ago so we were prepared,” he said. “The emphasis is on how to handle this type of incident. The big luck is that he was stopped at the gate. He could easily have run over the security coordinator or broken through the barrier at the entrance to the community.”
In the shooting attack, Master Sgt. Haim Kalomiti was killed and five others were wounded, including the security coordinator of Tzur Natan who is in serious condition. The attacker, an Israeli Arab named Omar Yasin from Tayibe, was killed at the Tayibe quarries. At the same time, police arrested another Tayibe resident on suspicion of involvement in the attack. Police said that during his arrest, the suspect tried to attack officers with a glass bottle.