Israel has deployed hundreds of troops in a hunt for suspected Palestinian gunmen after an Israeli couple were killed in front of their children in the occupied West Bank. Eitam and Naama Henkin, both in their 30s, were shot dead while driving on Thursday night between the settlements of Itamar and Elon More, in the north of the Palestinian territory.
Their four children, aged between four months and nine years, were found unharmed in the back of the car. Arye Shalicar, Israeli army spokesman, said that the security forces were conducting an “intensive search” on the ground combined with intelligence efforts. The Henkins were residents of the central West Bank settlement Neria, northwest of Ramallah. They were to be buried in Jerusalem’s Har Hamenuhot cemetary at 08:00 GMT on Friday.
In the Palestinian village of Beitillu, a short distance from Neria, assailants torched a car and spray-painted “Revenge Henkin” on a nearby wall, the army said on Friday, noting that nobody was hurt. Apprehensive of rising tensions among settlers and Palestinians, the army said it would be deploying “four battalions in order to prevent an escalation of violence in the area adjacent to the location of the attack”.
