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Israeli terror victim succumbs to his wounds

Shalom Sofer was stabbed two weeks ago while shopping in the Arab village of Funduq in Samaria.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A Jewish grocery owner who was knifed in a terror attack two weeks ago in an Arab village in Samaria died of his wounds late Monday night.

Shalom Sofer had just left his car to enter a store in Funduq, his son Lidor told Channel 2, when “the terrorist stabbed him in the back and stomach. He was alone there; I got to him three minutes later.”

The attacker fled, and Sofer managed to call for help. IDF medics gave him first aid for several stab wounds to his stomach, and he was then brought to the hospital in an army ambulance in what was initially described as light-to-moderate condition.

The army forces who arrived on the scene combed the area for several hours before finding and arresting the terrorist at around 9 p.m.

Although the hospital downgraded Sofer’s status to moderate-to-severe, he rallied and was released home several days ago.

Lidor said that while Shalom had been in pain at home, he was “functioning,” and the family felt sure that “our strong father is getting back to normal, to fight for our holy land.” Unfortunately, late Monday night, “one of his stab wounds reopened, and within a few minutes he lost a huge amount of blood.”

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Sofer, who lived in Petach Tikva, was rushed, unconscious, to Beilinson Hospital in the city, with medics trying to revive him on the way, but without success.

Shocked friends said that they had seen him in synagogue this past Sabbath and had wished him a speedy recovery.

Religious Zionism party head Betzalel Smotrich, who lives right outside of Kedumim, where Sofer had his grocery store, wrote that he was posting “this painful tweet…not as a politician, but as a friend who got to know over recent years a special man with a huge heart who will be greatly missed by his family, all the residents of Kedumim, and many, many other people. May God avenge Shalom Sofer. May his memory be for a blessing.”

Residents of the small town in Samaria described Sofer as “a warm person who helped everyone.” He employed several at-risk youth, they said, “helping kids who had dropped out of school.”

Lidor also described his father as a man full of good deeds, saying, “Any family that he saw was having difficulties, didn’t have to pay. He tried to strengthen Samaria as much as possible.”

Outgoing Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz sent their condolences to the family and praised the IDF for having captured the terrorist.

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But Hananel Dorani, head of the Kedumim Regional Council, stated: “It is the duty of the new government to cancel all the statements and actions of the previous government that gave hope to terrorism, and to stop any thought or talk about concessions to the Palestinian Authority.

“I expect my friends in the new government to change the equation and embark on a determined fight against terrorism at the same time as [starting] a construction boom and settlement development. This is the only way that the hope of terrorism can be extinguished.”