Tensions rise in West Bank after couple shot dead in front of their children

A couple have been shot dead in front of their four young children as they drove through the West Bank. Eitam and Naama Henkin were heading past the Palestinian village of Beit Furik on Thursday night when the attack happened. Their four children, aged between four months and nine years, were found unharmed in the back of the car. Israel’s military spokesman described the attack as “ruthless, heinous, barbaric” and announced four battalions would be deployed to the area to stop the violence escalating. The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas issued a statement online supporting the attack.

We praise the heroic operation that fighters in the West Bank carried out and we consider it a true response to the occupier’s crime

Hamas armed wing statement

The Henkins lived in the central West Bank settlement Neria, north-west of Ramallah, where they were buried on Friday morning. In the nearby Palestinian village of Beitillu, a car was torched and “Revenge Henkin” spray-painted on a nearby wall. The deadly shooting follows weeks of growing tension in Jerusalem and the West Bank, focused on access to the holy site known as the Haram Al Sharif, or ‘Noble Sanctuary’ to Muslims, and the Temple Mount to Jews.  In a speech to the UN earlier this week, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Israel was using “brutal force” around the Al Aqsa mosque and warned it could “turn the conflict from a political to a religious one”.

It’s been proven that unruly Palestinian incitement leads to acts of terror and of murder as we saw this evening

Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu

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