A Palestinian sniper shot and killed an Israeli soldier, Sergeant Gabriel Koby, 20, in the city of Hebron this evening. Koby, of Tirat Carmel, was said to be on patrol near the Cave of the Patriarchs when he was struck in the neck. It is the second killing of an Israeli soldier in two days.
“The IDF is currently searching the area for the perpetrators. Movement in the immediate Hebron vicinity is temporarily restricted in order to prevent the perpetrators from fleeing the city,” the Israel Defense Forces stated.
Video of the immediate aftermath seen by The Long War Journal shows over a dozen IDF soldiers rushing to aid Koby, who convulses at moments. Efforts were made to save the soldier by transporting him to a hospital in the Jerusalem area, but he succumbed to his wounds.
“The soldier came essentially lifeless – with a pulse but no blood pressure. We performed extensive resuscitation efforts but his injuries were too severe,” a doctor at Shaare Zedek Hospital said.
In a statement on the incident, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned: “Those who try to displace us from the city of our fathers [Hebron] will achieve only the opposite. With one hand we will fight terror and with the other we’ll strengthen settlement.”
Also today, a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip reportedly landed in southern Israel.
The killing of Gabriel Koby comes a day after Israeli authorities announced that an IDF soldier had been abducted and murdered by Palestinians in the West Bank. The soldier, Tomer Hazan, of Bat Yam, was lured by a coworker, Nidal Amar, to the Bayt Amin area in the West Bank, where he was killed. Amar had hoped to use Hazan’s body to bargain for the release of one of his brothers, Nur al Adin Amar, who has been imprisoned since 2003 for involvement in terror-related activities as part of Fatah’s Tanzim group.
In 2012, no Israelis were killed in terror attacks in the West Bank.
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