The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), claimed responsibility for the attack on the "Ariel" settlement near Salfit in the northern West Bank, and the attack - which occurred last Thursday - killed an Israeli security guard.
Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement that the Salfit operation "comes within a series of responses to the desecration of Al-Aqsa and the aggression against it, and it will not be the last." The military wing of Hamas described the Salfit attack as "a qualitative operation that confused the enemy's systems."
And Israeli media reported last Friday that an Israeli security guard in Ariel settlement was shot dead by Palestinian gunmen, before the occupation army announced the following day the arrest of two Palestinians from Salfit governorate for allegedly carrying out the attack, and seizing weapons with them.
Urgent: The guard of the "Ariel" settlement, which is built on Salfit lands, was killed and the resistance fighters withdrew from the place pic.twitter.com/FqtJmSAWUD
— Hamed Al-Ali (@Hamed_Alali) April 29, 2022
The Israeli army said that the two suspects were arrested in the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan, near the city of Salfit.
Tel Aviv reported that the shooting in Ariel brings to 15 the death toll at the hands of Arab attackers in Israel and West Bank settlements in the past few weeks.
During the blessed month of Ramadan, a noticeable tension prevailed in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque due to almost daily incursions into the Temple Mount, expelling worshipers from it, and allowing hundreds of Israelis to repeatedly storm Al-Aqsa.