Israeli forces on Sunday captured, after more than 48 hours of an extensive manhunt, two Palestinians suspected of killing three Israelis with an ax on Thursday in the town of Elad in central Israel.
“The two terrorists who murdered three Israeli civilians during the attack in the town of Elad have been arrested,” the police, army and Shin Beth, the internal security service, said in a joint statement.
They were found not far from a quarry, in a wooded area near the town of Elad, located near the metropolis of Tel Aviv.
After the attack Thursday evening, the police launched a manhunt by distributing the photos and the names of two Palestinians suspected of having committed it: they are Assaad Youssef Al-Rifaï, 19, and Sobhi Imed Abou Choukeir, 20, from the village of Roummaneh in the Jenin region of the West Bank.
“We said we would get our hands on the terrorists and we did,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
His Defense Minister Benny Gantz praised, in a message on Twitter, the joint operation of the police, the army and the Shin Beth, during which important forces were deployed and helicopters and drones used .
An attack that coincides with the 74and anniversary of the creation of the Jewish state
The attack took place on the day of celebrations for the 74th anniversary of the establishment of the State of Israel.
According to witnesses, the assailants jumped out of a car and started attacking passers-by with axes before fleeing in the vehicle. Three Israelis were killed and four injured, one of whom is in critical condition, in Elad, where some of the 50,000 residents are ultra-Orthodox Jews.
It was the sixth attack targeting Israelis since March 22, in Israel and the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by the Israeli army since 1967.
After the attack, Israel had extended until Sunday the closure of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to prevent the escape of suspects to these Palestinian territories.
Palestinian President and leader of the secular movement Fatah Mahmoud Abbas, based in the West Bank, condemned “the killing of Israeli civilians” after the attack.
But the Palestinian Islamist movements of Hamas and Islamic Jihad hailed a “heroic” attack, but did not claim it.
According to them, it was carried out in response to violence in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the Holy City occupied by Israel since 1967.