HOMESH, West Bank (Reuters) – Hundreds of mourners on Friday attended the funeral procession of an Israeli man who was shot dead during an attack near a Jewish settlement outpost in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Yehuda Dimentman was killed on Thursday by Palestinian gunmen who ambushed his car as it left a religious seminary near the road between the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Nablus, an Israeli military spokesman said.
The 25-year-old died from gunshot wounds while being rushed to hospital, Israel’s ambulance service said. Two other Israelis were wounded in the attack, which comes amid an uptick in Israeli-Palestinian violence.
Dimentman was a student at the seminary in Homesh, an Israeli settlement which was established without government permission and whose residents were evacuated in 2005.
Armoured buses were used to ferry mourners to Homesh for a memorial service at which some called for the settlement to be fully re-established. Dimentman’s body was not brought to the site – he was due to be buried in Jerusalem later on Friday.
On Thursday Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, a former head of the West Bank’s main settler movement, sent “heartfelt condolences” to Dimentman’s family. “Security forces will soon get their hands on the terrorists and we’ll ensure that justice is served,” he said on Twitter.
The incident follows several Palestinian attacks on Israelis in recent weeks. Although it drew praise from Hamas and Islamic Jihad, no militant group immediately claimed responsibility.
Palestinians frequently complain of attacks by Jewish settlers, whose residence in the West Bank the international community considers illegal.
(Reporting by Ronen Zvulun and Rami Amichay in Homesh, Writing by Stephen Farrell in Jerusalem, Editing by Giles Elgood)
