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While the UN devotes its human rights operations to the demonization of the democratic state of Israel above all others and condemns the United States more often than the vast majority of non-democracies around the world, the voices of real victims around the world must be heard.
U.N. Obsession with Condemning
Israel Instead
A car targeted in a shooting attack, August 11, 2024. (Photo courtesy Rescuers Without Borders)
Palestinian Authority/Gaza, August 11, 2024
Israeli killed, another hurt in Jordan Valley terror attack
Original source
An Israeli civilian was killed and another was wounded in a drive-by terror shooting attack against motorists on a major highway in the West Bank on Sunday afternoon, the military and medics said.
Hamas on Sunday night took responsibility for the terror attack, near the Mehola Junction on Route 90, the main north-south artery in the Jordan Valley.
The Israel Defense Forces said a large number of troops were dispatched to the scene of the attack to search for the terrorists and that soldiers were blocking roads in the area.
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi visited the site of the attack and held a situational assessment with defense and security officials on the ongoing hunt for the perpetrators.
“Our mission is to catch these terrorists and get to them before they attack. We didn’t succeed here,” Halevi said according to an IDF statement, adding, “The clock is counting down” to the moment that security forces catch the perpetrators.
Military and medical authorities said two cars came under fire in the attack, which an initial IDF probe found was carried out with an assault rifle. The IDF found 5.56 mm shell casings at the scene.
The distance between the two victims’ cars was some 250 meters, according to the probe.
In one of the cars, a man in his 20s was shot dead, the Magen David Adom ambulance service said. He was later identified as 23-year-old Yonatan Deutsch, from Beit She’an.
In the second car, Anas Jaramana, 32, from the northern Arab town of Muqeible, was found in moderate condition and taken to a hospital in Israel, according to MDA.
The IDF said that the attack was carried out by Palestinian terrorists in a passing vehicle, who then fled the scene.
The wounded man, Jaramana, reported the attack to authorities. When medics arrived at the scene, they discovered Deutsch in critical condition and declared his death a short while later.
The terror group did not provide evidence to confirm its involvement, but in recent months it has carried out numerous attacks against civilians and troops in the West Bank.
The city of Beit She’an has lost “a great man,” mayor Noam Juma said of Deutsch, whom Hebrew media reported had recently gotten engaged.
“Six years ago, he contacted me with a WhatsApp message: ‘Hello, this is Yonatan Deutsch from Bnei Akiva (a religious Zionist youth movement) and I am looking to volunteer in the city,'” Juma recalled. “He was a serial volunteer — at Bnei Akiva, at the volunteer headquarters during the COVID-19 pandemic, and in many community projects.
“Despite the age difference, I saw a friend and a hero in him,” he said, adding that Deutsch had “a huge heart that left a big mark on the city of Beit She’an.”
Tensions in Israel and the West Bank have soared since October 7, when terrorists burst through the Gaza border into Israel in a Hamas-led attack, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages.
Since then, 26 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in Palestinian terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank — including in Sunday’s attack. Another five members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
In the same period, troops have arrested some 4,400 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,850 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 590 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops, or terrorists carrying out attacks.
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