Israeli woman killed on day of three separate West Bank terror attacks

Hadar Buchris stabbed to death in Gush Etzion; 3 Palestinian assailants dead; settlers rally for increased security.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Updated: NOVEMBER 23, 2015 12:54
Hadar Buchris killed in the Etzion Junction terror attack on November 22, 2015 (photo credit: FACEBOOK)
Hadar Buchris killed in the Etzion Junction terror attack on November 22, 2015
(photo credit: FACEBOOK)
A Palestinian terrorist stabbed and killed Hadar Buchris, 21, as she stood at a bus stop at the Gush Etzion junction in the West Bank on Sunday afternoon.
It was the third such West Bank attack of the day and the second at the junction in the last four days.
The IDF has banned Palestinian workers from entering the Gush Etzion settlements on Monday, a spokesman for the Gush Etzion Regional Council said.
IDF forces who responded to Sunday’s attack immediately shot and killed the suspected stabber, who was identified as Atzam Tuabata, a 34-year-old resident of Beit Fajar, near Bethlehem in the West Bank.
Scene of stabbing attack in Gush Etzion
According to the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), Tuabata did not have a criminal record.
Magen David Adom paramedic Zaki Yahav said that when he arrived at the scene he saw “a young woman in her twenties lying unconscious with stab wounds to her upper body on the sidewalk near the bus stop.”
“People at the site had begun to provide first aid and they were trying to stop the bleeding. We quickly moved her into the ambulance and evacuated her to the hospital on a respirator,” Yahav said.
Buchris was pronounced dead at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.
The head of Shaare Zedek’s trauma unit, Doctor Ofer Marin said Buchris had multiple stab wounds in her head and chest and was not breathing and did not have a pulse when she arrived. The hospital’s medical staff was unable to revive her, Marin said.
Buchris was studying at the Zohar seminary in the Bat Ayin settlement near Gush Etzion. She had just returned to Israel a few weeks ago from a half-a-year trip to India. She will be buried at the Har Hamenuhot cemetery in Jerusalem on Monday afternoon.
Following the attack, settlers blocked roads leading to nearby Hebron from where many of the attacks in the last two months have originated.
Earlier in the day, about 1,000 settlers, along with politicians from the Likud and Bayit Yehudi parties, protested in front of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office during the weekly cabinet meeting to call for increased security, particularly in the Gush Etzion region. They called on the IDF to temporarily cordon off villages in the area in response to the attacks.
Sunday morning, a Palestinian taxi driver rammed into an Israeli car and then stabbed a passenger, lightly wounding the man in the hand, near the Ma’aleh Adumim settlement, just outside of Jerusalem.
Police superintendent Rafi Cohen, from the Ma’aleh Adumim station, said the driver hit the Israeli car on Route 1, by the Mishor Adumim junction in what police initially believed was a car accident.
After it was hit, the Israeli car spun around and came to a stop on the side of the road, Cohen said. The driver and the passengers got out of the vehicle.
Then the taxi driver left his cab with a 20-centimeter kitchen knife and stabbed and wounded the Israeli driver, Cohen said. Another passenger in the car shot and killed the terrorist.
Earlier citizens and security forces killed a Palestinian woman who tried to knife Israelis as they waited at a bus stop and hitchhiking post near the Hawara checkpoint, close to the city of Nablus in the West Bank.
Former Samaria Council head Gershon Mesika, who had stopped at the bus stop to pick up hitchhikers, ran over the assailant with his car.
“I heard someone yelling, “terrorist, terrorist!” he later said.
“I looked up. I saw someone large running after a young woman. I didn’t think twice, I turned the steering wheel to the right, I pressed my foot onto the gas, and ran her over,” Mesika said.
“She fell over and then security forces shot her,” he added.
His car dropped slightly into a nearby ditch, but it was after he had already stopped and he was not injured, Mesika said.
Avigail Shomriyah, 21, said she had been at the bus stop attempting to hitch a ride to her college when the woman attempted to stab her.
“I turned around and saw a terrorist with a large knife and murderous looking eyes. It was a very large knife. I ran in the direction of the soldiers, she ran after me. Then Gershon ran her over. Then they shot her,” Shomriyah said.
“I continued to run, I was afraid someone would run over me,” Shomriyah said.
Yossi Dagan, heads of the Samaria Regional Council, said: “It is a shame that we in Israel have to deal with these scenes on a daily basis.
“We regret that this is our routine, but we can do nothing but be thankful that there are civilians like these,” Dagan said, referring to Mesika.