A Palestinian attacker stabbed a 13-year-old girl to death at her home in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Thursday before being shot dead by security guards, the Israeli army said. The army said the Palestinian killed the girl in her bed after breaking into her house in the Kiryat Arba settlement outside the city of Hebron.
Security personnel rushed to the house and fired on the attacker, who wounded a guard before being shot dead, the army said. The girl was taken to a hospital in Jerusalem in critical condition and died of her wounds. The Palestinian health ministry identified the attacker as Mohammed Nasser Tarayra, 19, from the village of Bani Naim, just outside the city.
Israeli media, who identified the girl as Hallel Yaffa Ariel, reported that she was attacked in her sleep. The Israeli military released a photograph of her blood-spattered bedroom. Hebron in the occupied West Bank has been a flashpoint in a spate of deadly unrest that has rocked Israel and the Palestinian territories since October last year.