Palestinian youth stabs Israeli girl, 13, to death as she sleeps in her bed

A teenaged Palestinian stabbed a 13-year-old Israeli girl to death in her bedroom in a settlement in the occupied West Bank on Thursday. The attacker, identified as 17-year-old Mohammed Nasser Tarayra from a nearby Palestinian village, climbed the walls wounded one of the guards in the Kiryat Arba settlement before he was shot dead. His home would be destroyed and permits enabling his relatives to work in Israel revoked, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. He also called on Palestinian leaders to condemn the attack.

The horrific murder of an innocent girl in her bed sheds light on the bloodlust and lack of humanity displayed by the terrorists we are facing.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The attacker climbed a security fence and broken into the home where he attacked Hallel Yaffa Ariel, pictured above with her family. Photos released by the military showed blood on the bed and floor in her room. The girl was taken to hospital where she later died. “My daughter was sleeping calmly when he [the terrorist] came into her bedroom,” her mother, Rina, said. “She was happy.” Hallel was a member of a dance troupe and had performed in Jerusalem the night before her death. Her step-father, Amihai, is a cousin of agriculture minister Uri Ariel.

Kiryat Arba