An Islamic terrorist attacked a young Israeli man in his mid-2os, an off-duty soldier who had gone out to graze livestock from the outpost where he lives near Susya in the southern Hebron Hills. The attacker struck him in the head with a rock, stole his personal weapon, and fled the scene.
The incident unfolded Saturday during a violent confrontation that included mutual stone-throwing between Israeli civilians and Islamists in the Susya area of southern Hebron Hills.
1+According to the IDF, the Islamic attacker managed to grab the soldier’s personal weapon during the confrontation, after which gunshots were heard in the area as the assailant escaped. The young man was wounded in the head from the rock strike. A Magen David Adom team that arrived at the Eshkar Susiya junction provided medical treatment and evacuated him in an intensive care ambulance to Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva in moderate but stable condition.
IDF forces and Border Police fighters from the Judea and Samaria district rushed reinforcements to the area, set up roadblocks, and launched a wide-scale manhunt for the terrorist. Shortly after the attack, the stolen weapon was found near the scene and returned to security forces, while the search for the attacker continues.
1+The unusual incident comes at the peak of a security escalation in Judea and Samaria, accompanied by intensive IDF operational activity and the arrest of dozens of wanted individuals across the region, following previous deadly incidents and violent riots by masked men in nearby Palestinian villages and a deadly attack that killed two soldiers near the Gilad outpost.