An Israeli was killed and five others were wounded, two of them seriously, in a shooting that targeted several locations in central Israel on Sunday, near the settlements of Kochav Yair, Tzur Yitzhak and Tzur Natan.
Israeli police announced that the attacker had been killed and a second suspect arrested, amid conflicting accounts regarding the number of participants in the attack.
The Israeli occupation forces identified the man killed as reservist Sergeant Haim Kalomiti, 55, from Tzur Natan, who was serving in the regional defense unit of the Ephraim Brigade and was a member of the town’s local security squad. Tzur Natan’s security coordinator, also a reservist, was seriously wounded in the attack.
According to the Israeli reports, the attacker was Omar Yassin, a Palestinian who held Israeli citizenship and was driving a car with Israeli license plates. Police said Yassin left Tayibe at around 10:30 am, armed with a locally made Carlo automatic gun, and first opened fire on civilians at the gas station near Kochav Yair.
He then continued toward Tzur Yitzhak and Tzur Natan, before reaching the settlement of Sal’it and firing at its entrance without causing injuries there.
The attack took place in the HaSharon area north of Tel Aviv, where the shooting began, according to Israeli media, at a gas station near Kochav Yair before reaching Tzur Yitzhak and Route 5533, and then continuing to Tzur Natan and the Sal'it settlement.
Yassin fired at the entrance of the Sal'it settlement without causing injuries there. The Israeli ambulance service Magen David Adom reported treating six wounded people at different locations before announcing that one of them had died of his wounds.
Israeli police added that its officers pursued the attacker to the area around a quarry near Tayibe, where they shot and killed him at around 11:03 am, but other Israeli accounts spoke of a second attacker, especially after police announced the arrest of another suspect in his 20s, also from Tayibe, who they alleged had admitted involvement in the attack while trying to find a place to hide, then attempted to stab police officers with a bottle during his arrest.
In the aftermath of the attack, sirens sounded in Tzur Natan and Tzur Yitzhak, and residents were asked to stay in their homes in anticipation of an “armed infiltration,” before the instructions were lifted after about five hours.
The Israeli occupation forces also announced that they had encircled several Palestinian villages in the area near Kochav Yair and closed a nearby crossing into Israel, while the Palestinian WAFA agency reported the closure of two military checkpoints at the entrance to Tulkarm and the setting up of a checkpoint at the entrance to Qalqilya.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security meeting to follow developments, and Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir conducted a preliminary assessment at the site of the attack with the commander of the Central Command.
For his part, the far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir threatened to execute the attacker had he been captured alive, saying that “anyone who kills a Jew will face the gallows,” in reference to the death penalty law passed by the Knesset in March.
The incident comes two days after 7-month-old baby Wissam Abu Haykal was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces near Hebron. Wissam’s family described that the bullet pierced his father’s hand, then the child’s head, before lodging in his mother’s body while the family was inside their vehicle.
The infant’s killing sparked widespread anger in the West Bank, amid his family’s insistence that the car was not moving and that the father had raised his hands before the shooting. The scene brought renewed attention to the escalating targeting of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and the turning of roads and vehicles into open arenas of confrontation.
