A 13-year-old Israeli girl was stabbed to death in her bedroom this morning by a Palestinian attacker who crept into her home.
Hallel Yaffa Ariel was reportedly asleep in her bed when she was killed in her house in Kiryat Arba, an Israeli settlement near Hebron in the occupied West Bank.
“She was stabbed many, many times. Mostly in her back,” said a doctor at Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek hospital, where she was treated.
The attacker then stabbed an Israeli security guard responding to the scene before he was shot dead, according to the Israeli military.
The assailant was identified by Palestinian authorities as Mohammad Tra'ayra, a 19-year-old from a nearby Palestinian village.
The 31-year-old security guard was treated at a Jerusalem hospital and is expected to survive.
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, promised to take "strong and determined" action in response to the attack:
The horrifying murder of a young girl in her bed underscores the bloodlust and inhumanity of the incitement-driven terrorists that we are facing.
The entire nation deeply identifies with the family's pain and declares to the murderers: You will not break us.
We will continue to take strong and determined action against terrorism everywhere and at all times.
The attacker climbed over a security fence before entering the house, according to Malachi Levinger, chairman of Kiryat Arba's council. "Two members of a response team exchanged fire with him. One of them was wounded and the terrorist was killed," he told Army Radio.
Kiryat Arba is an Israeli settlement of around 8,000 people on the outskirts of the Palestinian city of Hebron. Hebron is home to around 200,000 Palestinians but also an Israeli settlement, where around 500 Jewish residents live under the protection of Israeli soldiers.
The city of Hebron has long been a source of tension in the West Bank and has been a flashpoint throughout the wave of violence in the region which began in October.
Over the past eight months, Palestinians have killed 33 Israelis and two visiting Americans in wave of attacks, mainly involving knives but occasionally guns or cars.
Israeli forces have killed at least 198 Palestinians, the majority of whom were shot while trying to carry out attacks, according to the Israeli government.
Hebron has been the scene of some of many violent incidents. In March, two young Palestinians attacked and wounded an Israeli soldier.
The attackers were both shot and one of the soldier's comrades then killed one of the assailants as he lay wounded on the ground. The soldier, Sergeant Elor Azaria, is on trial in an Israeli military court.
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