Israeli troops hunt killers of Jewish settler couple

Rabbi <g data-gr-id="23">Eitam</g> Henkin and his wife, Naama, both in their 30s, were shot as they were travelling in their car Thursday night between the settlements of Itamar and Elon More, in the north of the Israeli-occupied territory. 

Their four children, aged between four months and nine years, were found unharmed in the back of the vehicle. 

Army spokesman Colonel Peter Lerner said the Henkin couple was “massacred right in front of” them. A paramedic described the scene of the shooting as “difficult”. 

“We saw a car in the middle of the road, and next to it, a man in his 30s lay on the ground with upper body gunshot wounds,” Boaz Malka was quoted as saying by Israeli media. 

Israel’s foreign ministry <g data-gr-id="30">said</g> “at least two” gunmen targeted the vehicle in a “drive-by” attack, but the exact circumstances of the incident were unclear. Israeli forces were conducting an “intensive search” on the ground, said army spokesman Arye Shalicar. 

And an AFP journalist saw soldiers searching cars along roads around the attack site.  The <g data-gr-id="25">Henkins</g> <g data-gr-id="36">were</g> residents of the Neria settlement, northwest of Ramallah.  The foreign ministry said they were returning from a graduation ceremony at a Jewish school when the shooting occurred around <g data-gr-id="35">9pm</g>. 

The incident came hours after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the UN General Assembly, and a day after Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Israel’s refusal to release prisoners and stop settlement activity was hampering fresh peace talks. 

Netanyahu condemned the killings, which he called “the effects of Palestinian incitement,” vowing that security services would work to “capture the murderers and improve security for all Israeli citizens”. 

The European Union called for justice as well as restraint. 

“Even in the face of such a crime, restraint and calm are needed on all sides to ensure that the violence witnessed on Thursday and in recent months does not aggravate the situation further,” it said. Apprehensive of rising tensions between settlers and Palestinians, the army said it would be deploying “four battalions in order to prevent an escalation of violence in the area adjacent to the location of the attack.”  

In the Palestinian village of Beitillu, a short distance from Neria, assailants torched a car and spray-painted “Revenge Henkin” in Hebrew on a nearby wall, the army said, adding that nobody was hurt. 

The <g data-gr-id="26">Henkins</g> <g data-gr-id="28">were</g> buried Friday in Jerusalem’s Har Hamenuhot cemetery at a ceremony attended by thousands of mourners, including their oldest child Matan, and Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. 

“We will fight terror without fear, mercy or cowardice,” Rivlin told the crowd.