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Israeli forces kill Palestinian ‘suspect’ in rabbi death

Tuesday, 06 February 2018 8:41 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 06 February 2018 11:33 AM ]

Ahmad Nassar Jarrar, a Palestinian man who was killed by Israeli forces near the West Bank city of Jenin on February 6, 2018

Israeli forces say they have killed a Palestinian man whom they say was the prime suspect in the fatal shooting of a rabbi last month.

The Shin Bet security service said on Tuesday that it had shot dead Ahmad Nassar Jarrar during a pre-dawn raid on a building in the northern West Bank town of al-Yamun near the city of Jenin.

Israeli troops opened fire at Jarrar, 22, when he left the building carrying an M-16 assault rifle and a bag of explosives, the security service said, adding that the raid came following a “determined and complicated intelligence and operational effort.”

Rabbi Raziel Shevach was killed in a drive-by shooting near his home in the Havat Gilad outpost near the West Bank city of Nablus on January 9.

Since then, Israeli forces have been conducting a large manhunt in Jarrar’s hometown of Jenin. They demolished the Palestinian man’s home in a previous attempt to catch him.

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Following Tuesday’s raid, Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli minister of military affairs took to Twitter to hail what he called “a successful operation,” saying, “The account is closed.”

“It was clear that it was only a matter of time before we struck the head of the cell that murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach. I hope that we will soon have our hands on the murderer of Rabbi Itamar Ben Gal,” he tweeted.

Last month, Hessam Badran, a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, praised the person responsible for the killing of the rabbi a “hero” and described the incident as a natural reaction to the occupying regime’s atrocities against the Palestinian nation and its holy sites.

He also called the shooting a slap in the face of the Israeli regime and a response to US President Donald Trump’s move to recognize East Jerusalem al-Quds as Israel’s “capital.”

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