Jewish residents take to the streets, block off West Bank highway; local leader bemoans ‘more orphans in family of terror victims’
Palestinian workers will not be allowed into the Jewish settlements located in the Hebron Hills on Monday, following the murder of a female resident allegedly by a Palestinian man on Sunday, the southern West Bank local government announced.
Dafna Meir, 38, was stabbed to death in her home in the Otniel settlement outside of Hebron on Sunday evening, while three of her children were in the house.
The terrorist is believed to be a Palestinian man who had permission to work in the Jewish settlement. He fled the scene after the attack, prompting security forces to set up roadblocks and lock down the area as they searched for him.
As a result of the attack, the Hebron Hills Regional Council decided to forbid Palestinian workers from entering the settlements in the area the next day, the council announced on Sunday night.
“More orphans in the family of terror victims. This is a terrible reminder that there is a war going on here,” Yochai Dimri, head of the Hebron Hills Regional Council, told Army Radio.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke with Dimri after the attack about the current security situation in light of the attack, his office announced on Twitter.
The attack sparked harsh condemnation from across the political spectrum and local anger as dozens of local Jewish residents took to the streets in protest after the attack.
The protesters blocked off the Kiryat Arba Junction of the Route 60 Highway, the main thoroughfare in the central West Bank, Israel Radio reported.
Meir was described by her neighbors as a “joyful” person — a nurse by profession and a foster parent to two children in addition to her four biological children.
She worked at Beersheba’s Soroka Medical Center and was also a pre-marital counselor for brides, according to the Ynet news site.
“She was a happy woman, joyful, optimistic, driven, responsible, loving,” a neighbor, Yishai Klein, told Ynet. “Everyone in the settlement who was in pain knew they could call her 24 hours a day.”
Israeli troops launched a manhunt for the killer following the attack, declaring the area a closed military zone and shooting flares above local Palestinian villages in an effort to locate the suspected terrorist.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed the terrorist “will pay” for the death of Meir. “Dafna Meir, mother of six, was brutally murdered this evening by a Palestinian terrorist inside her home in Otniel,” he wrote on Facebook. “In the name of all Israelis, I want to give strength to all the children of the family. All of us are hurting and share in the painful grief. We will find the terrorist, and he will pay the full price for this heinous murder.”
As reported by The Times of Israel