After an Israeli teen was stabbed and nearly kidnapped in an Arab ambush, a clash broke out between Jews and Palestinians that left one dead.
By David Isaac, World Israel News
An Israeli teenager recounted to Israeli news outlets how he was walking alone on a Sabbath afternoon stroll on the outskirts of the Jewish village of Adei Ad when he was set upon by Palestinian Arabs who beat him and tried to kidnap him.
“I went for a little alone time about 200 meters from the village. Suddenly, I saw three Arabs. They ambushed me and tried to drag me to their village,” the youth told the Ynet news site.
“I managed to escape to Adei Ad, and on the way I realized that I’d been stabbed in the hand. I saw blood, and alerted the [settlement’s] emergency response team, and they started chasing the assailants,” he said.
The teen said the emergency response team arrived in one minute. The IDF arrived later, after about five minutes. The teen also said that he yelled to a group of children playing to run, that there were terrorists nearby.
In an interview with Kan Bet radio, the teenager insisted that he had not stumbled into Palestinian territory and remained within the territory of Adei Ad. He said the borders are clearly marked and he was familiar with the area.
A clash then broke out between the Palestinians from the adjacent town of Al-Mu’ayyir. Shots were fired and one Palestinian, was killed, Ynet reports. Two other Palestinians were injured and evacuated to a hospital in the city of Ramallah.
The IDF and Israeli border police separated the two sides and is investigating the incident.
The incident took place about 200 to 300 meters from the homes of the residents of the Jewish village, Adei Ad representatives said, and about two to three kilometers from the village of al-Mu’ayyir.
The Palestinian Authority’s official news agency WAFA, and other Palestinian news outlets reported the clash as an attack by “both Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers,” claiming that “Jewish settlers raided and attacked the village.”
Zuriel Amiur, the spokesman for the village of Adei Ad, blasted the Palestinian version of events in an interview with Arutz 7. “The headlines, of course, don’t always line up with reality,” Amiur said.
“In the course of the event, as reported, one of the rioters was killed…. it became clear that were not talking about a protester but a terrorist, a convicted terrorist who sat in an Israeli jail,” he said. “The ‘father of four’ as he’s being described in the media is a convicted terrorist of serious crimes of shooting and laying explosives. We’re talking about a Hamas terrorist.”
“By the way, the whole village is Hamas. That’s a village where almost every night the security forces are carrying out arrests,” Amiur said.
He also said that the area where the incident occurred is one where Israelis from a string of settlements frequently hike every Sabbath. “It’s an area that Arabs don’t enter, there’s nothing there for them. There’s no Arab agricultural land. We’re talking about an area that belongs to the settlement of Adei Ad.”