Jewish Settler in Hebron Killed, Home Is Burned
A Jewish settler was stabbed to death Thursday night by a suspected Palestinian assailant who broke into his home and torched it in a fortified Jewish enclave in the West Bank city of Hebron, the Israeli army said.
There was concern that the killing would trigger new violence in Hebron, a city of 130,000 Palestinians and 450 Jewish settlers.
“There was a murder by a terrorist in a house in Tel Rumeida; an Israeli citizen was killed,” an Israeli army spokesman said.
The umbrella council of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza said the assailant also wounded the man’s wife.
“The murder of a Jew in Hebron is the continuation of attacks against Jewish settlements and settlers by the Palestinian Authority and with its encouragement,” council spokesman Aharon Domb said in a statement.
Domb identified the victim as Rabbi Shlomo Raanan, 63, the grandson of a spiritual leader of Israel’s settler movement.
He said he believed that the assailant fled to a part of Hebron under Palestinian control. There was no known motive for the attack.
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