The man who was shot in a terrorist attack on Saturday night near Kiryat Arba was identified Sunday morning as Ronen Hanania, a resident of the West Bank settlement.
Hanania’s son, who was injured in the attack, said he and his father parked their car and drove into a grocery store between Kiryat Arba and the nearby city of Hebron. When they returned to their car to leave, the attacker “opened fire on us from the left”, he recalls Sunday morning.
After hearing his father scream, the son turned to see him with a serious head injury. “The bullet entered from above and his head split open. I saw him die.
The son of the deceased, who has not been named, told Channel 12 that he waited 15 minutes for emergency services to arrive on the scene, before deciding to take refuge inside the grocery.
Inside the store, he said that “some Arabs took care of my hand, one of them took a sweater and put a tourniquet on me. Afterwards, they told us that everything was fine and that there was a paramedic for us outside. But as they exited the store, the shooter opened fire on them a second time, rushing them back into the store.
“The terrorist shot at the windows, and as you can see in the pictures, they [security forces] killed him by ramming and then shooting him.
The Palestinian perpetrator of a terror shooting near Kiryat Arba in the West Bank is seen in dash cam footage, just before he was rammed by a security guard and shot dead by a soldier who was not not in service, October 29, 2022. (Screenshot; used in pursuant to Section 27a of the Copyright Act)
Returning to his injured father, the son said: “He was breathing, he had a pulse, but his brain had been damaged… he had no chance of living. I saw my father, I had the chance to witness his last moments.
The attacker was identified as Muhammed Kamel al-Jabari, an apparent member of the Hamas terror group. After shooting Hanania and her son, Jabari opened fire on the colony’s medics and security guards who arrived at the scene to help the couple.
In all, Jabari injured three other people, one of them seriously – a doctor. A Palestinian was also among the wounded.
Israel Defense Forces Chief Aviv Kohavi visited the scene of the attack on Sunday morning as part of a preliminary investigation. He also carried out an assessment of the situation with the local commanders.
IDF leader Aviv Kohavi (center) at the scene of a terror attack near Kiryat Arba in the West Bank, October 30, 2022 (Israel Defense Forces)
Before dawn on Sunday morning, Israeli troops measured the house of al-Jabari — the first stage before its potential demolition — in Hebron. The Israel Defense Forces said troops also arrested al-Jabari’s brother for his alleged involvement in the attack.
Israel regularly demolishes the homes of Palestinians accused of carrying out deadly terrorist attacks as part of its policy. The effectiveness of the policy has been hotly debated even within Israel’s security establishment, while human rights activists denounce the practice as unfair collective punishment.
Al-Jabari was a married father of three children. Al-Jabari’s other brother, Waal, was sentenced to life in an Israeli prison before being released and deported to the Gaza Strip as part of Gilad Shalit’s 2011 prisoner swap deal .
Hananiah will be buried at Har Hamenuhot Cemetery in Jerusalem on Sunday at 4 p.m.
Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.
