The slain officer has been identified as Yehoshua "Shuki" Sofer of Be'er Sheva. Sofer, 39, had served in the Hevron region for 14 years. His funeral will take place at 5:30 p.m. Monday in the Be'er Sheva cemetery.
The victims were taken to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva and Hadassah Ein Karem in Jerusalem. The attack was directed against a police vehicle on Monday morning along Route 60, south of Hevron.
Residents of the area noted that the IDF had removed a major checkpoint in the area just three weeks earlier. The checkpoint, the Dahariya crossing, was located roughly three kilometers from the site of attack.
The victim, who is physically handicapped, noticed a car with police lights signaling him to stop. When he pulled over, PA Arab men dragged him from his car, beat him, and stole his vehicle, leaving him at the side of the road. The victim was taken to a hospital in light condition.
His family managed to steal his body from the hospital, and apparently planned to bury it near the Al-Aksa mosque on the Temple Mount.
Also on Friday, a woman and her three children were ambushed by a rock-throwing mob in the same area; she slammed on the gas and escaped, after being hit in the head by one of the rocks. She received stitches in Hadassah Hospital.
JERUSALEM (JTA) -- One Israeli policeman was killed and three were injured in what is being described as an ambush on a police vehicle near Hebron.
The officers were being driven Monday morning from Beersheba to take up their posts in the Hebron area. The attack took place near the West Bank settlement of Beit Haggai.
Sgt.-Maj Yehoshua Sofer, 39, who had been serving in the Hebron region for 14 years, was shot in the stomach and died. Two other police officers were shot in the stomach and chest.
An unknown group calling itself the the Freedom Flotilla Martyrs claimed responsibility for the attack.
"Our response will continue, and we will never lay down our weapons as long as the Zionist army remains on our land, nor will we recognize any cease-fire," read a statement issued by the group, Ynet reported Monday afternoon.
Israeli army troops set up roadblocks and were searching the area for the attackers.
Eighteen checkpoints have been removed by the Israeli army in the Hebron area in the past year, Haaretz reported.
Anna, the wife of policeman Yoav Dahan who was wounded in the attack, reported that Sofer was to have been married a few weeks from now. “He was a wonderful man, a good soul, he loved to help,” she said. “He was supposed to get married in two months and he was so excited – and now instead of a wedding, he was murdered.”
A friend of Sofer's from the police force echoed her sentiments. “In two months, Shuki was supposed to marry the woman he loved, and now we have to arrange a funeral instead of a wedding,” he said.
Regional police commander Itzik Rachamim described Sofer as “a brave, beloved officer.” Sofer had worked in the Hevron region for 14 years, and had lately been working in Rachamim's office.
Officer Mordechai Ganon was also badly wounded in the incident, and is now in moderate condition. Ganon, who was shot in his stomach and chest, said he feels “fine” and hopes to return to work quickly. “I wasn't afraid... What was hard was seeing [the terrorists] but being unable to respond,” he said of the attack.
The officers were shot as they patrolled in a van. Ganon praised the driver for his response, saying that despite his own injuries, the driver managed to escape the terrorist ambush.
One policemen has died - one is listed as seriously wounded - after being shot south of Hevron last night, and a physically handicapped man was thrown from his car and treated in a hospital in the Shomron (Samaria). The terrorists in both incidents are assumed to have traveled unhindered through recently-removed checkpoints.
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The town of Otniel, in the South Mt. Hevron region where the shooting attack took place, released this statement: “Those who opened, just less than a month ago, the Dahariya checkpoint, with the knowledge that the place would become a refuge for murderers, cannot now lift his eyes heavenward and say, “Our hands did not spill this blood.’ [a Biblical term, ed.] Just a few years ago on this very route there were several attacks, but once the Dahariya route was blocked, we saw a drastic drop in such attacks. Once again, we see that ‘goodwill gestures’ to the Palestinian Authority cost us in blood.”
MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union): “The handwriting had been written on the wall in blood. Opening the checkpoints and crossings encourages terrorism and gives terrorists a free hand.”
MK Uri Ariel (National Union): “As we warned, opening the security checkpoints leads to terrorist attacks. Our security policy has to change to become one that puts the citizens’ safety in the center.”
Women in Green/Judea Action Committees: “Every cave-in brings terrorism: When we left Gaza, we got Hamas. When we fight terrorists with paintball guns, the world arises against us… When we take away checkpoints, the Arabs benefit and the Jews pay with their lives, when we forbid Jews to build and expand, the Arabs take over the land, and when we abandon the Adurayim Base in South Mt. Hevron, the Arabs understand that the way is clear to get rid of the Jews… We call to return to a strong stand for our natural rights to the Land of Israel, and to start acting like a sovereign in his own land. The government and the man at its helm must draw strength from the People of Israel, which exhibits strength and patriotism.”
Tzviki Bar-Chai, Chairman of the South Mt. Hevron Regional Council: “The three policemen who were wounded in the attack this morning are victims of [Defense Minister Ehud] Barak and Bibi [Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu]’s policies of removing checkpoints. It’s time for our political leadership to understand what everyone has already understood long ago, and that is that good-will gestures and removing checkpoints simply increase terrorism and destabilize our security.”
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