Mourners carry the body of Palestinian Ahmed Manasrah, during his funeral near Bethlehem, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank March 21, 2019. REUTERS/Mohamad Torokman
December 17, 2021
HOMESH, West Bank (Reuters) – Hundreds of mourners on Friday attended the funeral procession of an Israeli man who was shot dead during an attack near a Jewish settlement outpost in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Yehuda Dimentman, 25, was killed on Thursday by Palestinian gunmen who ambushed his car as it left a religious seminary between Jenin and Nablus, an Israeli military spokesman said.
Dimentman was a student at the seminary in Homesh, a settlement that was established without government permission and whose residents were evacuated in 2005.
On Friday armoured buses were used to ferry mourners to Homesh for a memorial service at which some called for the settlement to be re-established. Dimentman was later buried in Jerusalem.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former head of the West Bank’s main settler movement, sent his “deepest condolences” to Dimentman’s family on Friday.
“We will not be silent until we have caught and dealt with the vile murderers,” he said on Twitter.
Tensions mounted in the aftermath, amid Palestinian reports of settlers attacking Palestinian villages, shooting and throwing stones. There were also clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in the flashpoint East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
The fatal Homesh attack follows several Palestinian attacks on Israelis in recent weeks. Palestinians also complain of attacks by settlers, whose residence in the West Bank the international community considers illegal.
U.N. Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said he was “alarmed” by the recent escalation.
“Last night, Palestinian assailants opened fire toward an Israeli vehicle near Nablus, in which one Israeli was killed and two others injured. Since this morning, there have been several retaliatory attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians,” he said. “These tragic incidents, and numerous others in recent weeks, highlight the volatility of the current situation.”
Although no Palestinian militant group claimed responsibility for the latest shooting, a Hamas leader defended it.
“The Palestinian people have the right to defend themselves by all means,” Mahmoud al-Zahar told Reuters at a Gaza rally to mark the anniversary of Hamas’ creation in 1987.
(Reporting by Ronen Zvulun and Rami Amichay in Homesh and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Stephen Farrell in Jerusalem; Editing by Giles Elgood and Mark Porter)
Source: One America News Network
