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JERUSALEM, July 1 (Xinhua) -- An Israeli rabbi who heads a West Bank yeshiva was killed, his wife and children were injured after a Palestinian gunman opened fire on their family car near the West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, a military spokesperson said.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Peter Lerner said that a full closure will be imposed on the Hebron area in the southern West Bank in the wake of a surge deadly Palestinian attacks over the past two days.
Two additional battalions will also be brought into the Hebron area, according to Lerner.
In addition to action on the ground by the IDF and the security forces, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed Israeli authorities to deduct the amount of money being transferred by the Palestinian National Authority to families of attackers or suspects that were killed by Israeli fire.
"Prime Minister Netanyahu has ordered that the entire amount of support for terrorists and their families be deducted from the tax revenues that Israel transfers monthly to the Palestinian Authority," a statement by the Prime Minister's Office said.
Netanyahu blasted the Palestinian Authority for "transfering funds to terrorists by various laundering methods, the more severe the acts of terrorism, the greater the amount of funds."
Netanyahu also announced the security cabinet, Israel's top decision-making forum, will convene on Saturday for a security consultation. The ministers will discuss, among other topics, a demand by Naftali Bennett, leader of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party, to ban Palestinians from using Route 60, a major north-to-south road that crosses the West Bank.
Israel troops were on a manhunt on Friday afternoon for the Palestinian gunman who shot at the Israeli family driving in the West Bank, killing the father, Rabbi Micheal Mark, and wounding his wife and two teen children.
The military said a "terrorist" carried out the shooting in a vehicle the shooting on Route 60. Mark lost control of the car after he was shot and the car had crashed. The suspect fled the scene.
Medical officials said that Havva Mark, wife of Micheal Mark, who was sitting next to him, has been severely injured. Their 13-year-old daughter sustained moderate-to-serious injuries, and their 15-year-old son was lightly wounded.
Mark, 48, was a resident of the settlement of Otniel in the southern Hebron Hills. He was the head of the Otnial Yeshiva, an ultra-nationalist Jewish seminary in the area, and a former CEO of the "Southern Hebron Hills Development Company," a corporation for the development of construction projects in the Jewish settlements in the Hebron region. He was also a cousin of the head of the Mossad, Israel's intelligence agency.
Mark and his wife had 10 children, including the two that were traveling with them in the car.
Friday's shooting attack followed two earlier incidents in the area of Hebron, a region that has been a focal point of much of the attacks during the nearly nine months of a Palestinian uprising. Several hundred Jews live in a settlement enclave in Hebron under heavy military guard amidst 200,000 Palestinian, a constant source of frictions.
On Thursday, Mahmoud Tarayreh, 17, of Bani Naim entered a home in the settlement of Kiryat Arba and killed Hallel Yaffa Ariel while she was still in her bed. He had stabbed another Israeli civilian before security personnel shot and killed him.
Later on Thursday, a Palestinian from Tulkarem stabbed and wounded a man and a woman in the marketplace of Netanya, a city north of Tel Aviv. Local media reported that people were throwing objects at him in an attempt to stop him before a civilian passerby shot and killed him with his personal gun.
On Friday morning, an Israeli Border Police officer killed a Palestinian woman after she allegedly attempted to stab another officer during security checks outside a flashpoint holy site in Hebron, said police spokeswoman Luba Samri. The site is known to Muslims as Ibrahimi Mosque and to Jews as the "Cave of the Patriarchs."
The Palestinian Ma'an news agency identified the woman as 27-year-old Sarah Tarayreh. She was a member of the same extended family of the Kiryat Arba killer, but it was not clear if there were any connection between the two incidents.
A few hours later, a Palestinian man in his fifties died of heart attack during clashes that ensued in Qalandia, west of Jerusalem. Palestinian media reported he was not involved in the clashes and died due to inhalation of tear gas fired by the security forces.
An unnamed military official told the Hebrew Ynet news site that the recent flare-up is attributed to the expected end of the Muslim holy month of the Ramadan, which would be concluded next week.
In a statement responding to a report released by the Middle East peace "Quartet," Netanyahu welcomed the "Quartet's recognition of the centrality of Palestinian incitement and violence to the perpetuation of the conflict."
However, the statement added that "it is troubling" that the Quartet adopted the position that the presence of Jewish settlers in the West Bank prevents reaching a two-state solution.
"Israel rejects any attempt to draw moral equivalence between construction (of settlements) and terrorism," Netanyahu said.
The Quartet released on Friday a much-awaited report on ways to revive the stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.
The Quartet entities -- the UN, the U.S., European Union and Russia -- urged Israel to stop the expansion of the Jewish settlements in the West Bank and called on the Palestinians to halt "violence, terrorism and incitement."
The report also blamed Israel of "steadily eroding the viability of the two-state solution."
At least 211 Palestinians and 33 Israelis, two U.S. nationals, an Eritrean asylum seeker, and a Sudanese asylum seeker, have been killed since the start of the Palestinian unrest in mid-September.
Israeli leaders accuse the Palestinian National Authority of "inciting" the unrest, while the Palestinians say it is the result of 49 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank, east Jerusalem, home to more than 5 million Palestinians, where they wish to establish their state. Enditem
