JERUSALEM: Israel’s military on Friday searched the West Bank village of a Palestinian attacker who broke into a settlement home and stabbed three Israelis, including one who later died from his wounds.
The military said it detained four Palestinians for questioning and set up security inspections at entrances to Kauber, the assailant’s village, north of Jerusalem. The attacker was shot and killed at the scene Thursday.
Hamas, the militant group that rules Gaza, issued a statement praising the attack but did not claim responsibility for it.
Forces measured the attacker’s house ahead of its demolition, the military said. Israel typically demolishes the homes of Palestinian attackers calling it a deterrent measure, but critics consider the policy collective punishment.
Israeli authorities say a Palestinian infiltrated the Adam settlement and stabbed three people in a house. One man later died of his wounds.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the attack “was a brave operation that responds to the daily ugly crimes the occupation commits against our people.”
Israelis have faced a wave of Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings, on civilians and soldiers over the past two years but these types of assaults have declined recently.
Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Friday that Israel is to build hundreds of new homes in a settlement in the occupied West Bank where the Palestinian attacker stabbed three Israelis.
"The best answer to terrorism is the expansion of settlements," Lieberman wrote on Twitter, announcing 400 new housing units in the Adam settlement north of Jerusalem a day after the deadly stabbing.
