Palestinian boy wanted to be a ‘martyr’

JTA CORRESPONDENT

Pictured : Rina, the mother of Hallel Ariel, a 13-year-old Israeli girl who was fatally stabbed by a Palestinian attacker in her home, mourns during her funeral near Hebron, on June 30.

GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

 Muhammad Nasser Tarayrah, a 17-year-old Palestinian boy from a nearby village, stabbed Ariel multiple times while she was sleeping. Civilian guards shot and killed him.

The State Department issued a statement condemning the murder “in the strongest possible terms”.

“This brutal act of terrorism is simply unconscionable,” the statement said. “We extend our deepest condolences to her family. We also understand another individual who was responding to the attack was wounded by the attacker. We extend our hopes for a quick and full recovery.”

Tarayrah, who had posted on social media about wanting to die as a martyr, reportedly jumped over the fence to enter the settlement, activating an alarm. Guards were already heading to the area when he started stabbing the teen, according to reports.

Meeting after the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman decided to close off the village where the assailant lived and revoke work permits in Israel for members of his village. They also launched the process to demolish his family home.

“The horrifying murder of a young girl in her bed underscores the bloodlust and inhumanity of the incitement-driven terrorists that we are facing,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “The entire nation deeply identifies with the family’s pain and declares to the murderers: You will not break us.”

Netanyahu said he expected the Palestinian leadership to “clearly and unequivocally” condemn the attack and to take immediate action to stop the incitement.

Sari Bashi, the Israel and Palestine country director for Human Rights Watch, in a statement called the murder a “ghastly crime. The fact that settlements are illegal under international law does not make their inhabitants, the children as well as their parents, subject to lethal attack.

“At the same time,” she said, “the killing provides no legal justification for the Israeli government to punish the alleged attacker’s family members. Destroying the home of the attacker’s relatives and cancelling their work permits is an unlawful act.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s minister of public security said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg had some of the “blood” of recent Israeli terrorism victims on his hands for allowing Palestinian incitement and hate speech to appear on the social media site.

 “Facebook, which has brought a positive revolution to the world, since the rise of Islamic State and the wave of terror has become a monster,” Erdan told Israel’s Channel 2 TV, according to the Times of Israel.

Erdan, a member of the Likud party, added that “to my great sorrow, some of the blood of those who have been murdered, including in the latest attacks, of Hallel” was on Zuckerberg’s hands because Facebook failed to report the killer’s incendiary posts. (JTA)