Al-Aksa and Jihad claim Hebron attack

Yossi Shok, 35, father of five from Beit Hagai was killed Friday in a drive-by shooting near Hebron. Two sisters, also from Beit Hagai, who rode in the car with Shok, were lightly wounded and received medical treatment at the scene. Al-Aksa Martyrs’ Brigades and Islamic Jihad took responsibility for the attack. Officials in the terrorist organizations claimed the shooting came to avenge the targeted killing of some of their operatives earlier in the week. The car from which the shots were fired drove off to the nearby Bawarah refugee camp. The IDF has begun searching for the vehicle, but have not yet been successful. The incident took place on the road between Beit Hagai and Har Menoah shortly after 12:30 p.m., when shots were fired from a Palestinian car towards the car in which Shok was traveling. Shok was critically wounded in the head and evacuated to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem. An IDF doctor and the ambulance crew attempted to keep him alive long enough to reach the emergency room, where a trauma team had been notified and was awaiting the ambulance. Efforts to save him were unsuccessful and he succumbed to his wounds. One of the girls who was in the car related the difficult moments of the attack, describing „At first I thought they were stones [being thrown at the car], but then I realized that it wasn’t, because there was a lot of blood.” She told Channel 1 that her sister pushed her over and they both laid down in the car. Judea and Samaria Division Commander Brig.-Gen. Yair Golan commended Shok’s role in Beit Hagai’s alert squad, calling him a great asset to local security. Golan revealed that the terrorist attack would force the IDF to add checkpoints in the West Bank and perform more stringent inspection of the Palestinian populace. He regretted the strain that would place on the Palestinians. In a security analysis conducted at an IDF headquarters near Mt. Hebron, the division commander assessed that the same group of terrorists operated in the area previously, killing five Israelis. Some four months ago, two Israeli youths were killed in a drive-by shooting at the hitchhiking post near Beit Hagai.