TEL AVIV – A Palestinian stabbed and killed a 13-year-old Jewish Israeli girl in her West Bank home on Thursday morning, prompting the IDF to close off the terrorist’s village and arrest his father.
17-year-old Muhammad Nasser Tarayrah scaled a security fence surrounding the Kiryat Arba settlement and broke into the home of Hallel Yaffe Ariel, repeatedly stabbing the teenager while she was in bed sleeping. She later died from her wounds in a hospital in Jerusalem. A 31-year-old man from the settlement’s civic emergency response team was also wounded in the terror attack.
Speaking from her hospital bedside, Ariel’s bereaved mother called on Israelis to feel her pain and comfort her.
“My daughter was just sleeping – tranquil, relaxed, happy – when a terrorist came to her bed in Kiryat Arba and murdered her,” she told Arutz Sheva news.
“I, the mother, am not saying anything, I just ask that everyone consider [our] pain, I ask everyone to come and console us, strengthen us, and tell us that our [home] Kiryat Arba is still a place to live in – and not die in; that we may continue to love our place and our land. May Hallel-Yaffa Ariel’s memory be blessed.”
Tarayrah, who was shot and killed, hailed from Bani Na’im, a town of 20,000 that was subsequently closed by the IDF. A number of Palestinian residents of Bani Na’im have carried out terror attacks against Israelis.
The IDF released a statement saying that Israeli forces had visited the terrorist’s family home “in order to investigate.”
Palestinian media reported that Tarayrah’s father was arrested by IDF troops.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman released a joint statement saying they would also revoke the work permits of Tarayrah’s extended family and “the home of the terrorist would enter the process of being approved for demolition.”
“This appalling murder of an innocent girl in her bed displays the lust for murder and inhumanity of the terrorists who are drenched in incitement whom we have to face,” the prime minister added.
In March, Tarayrah’s cousin, also from Bani Na’im, Yussef Walid Tarayrah, drove his vehicle into Israeli soldiers, wounding one.
Majd al-Khudur, another resident of the town, carried out a car-ramming attack on an Israeli couple’s car last Friday, lightly wounding them.
A photo released by the IDF shows Ariel’s blood-smeared bedroom.
A paramedic who arrived on the scene shortly after the attack described the carnage.
“The girl was unconscious, without a pulse and not breathing. She had a number of penetrating wounds on her upper body. We loaded her onto the ambulance while performing CPR. Her condition was very serious. The second victim we loaded into the ambulance and gave him life-saving first aid. He was fully conscious, speaking with us throughout the ride [to the hospital],” said Magen David Adom medic Devora Aviad.
A volunteer for burial society ZAKA in Kiryat Arba, David Edrai, said: “To our great sadness, we find ourselves time after time treating people from our own community, people we know – and it breaks our heart. We carry out our sacred work with enormous pain and difficulties.”
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