Two British-Israeli sisters killed in a gun attack in the occupied West Bank have been named by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The sisters were shot dead in an attack on their car near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank on Friday.
In a statement on Twitter, Mr Netanyahu offered his condolences to the family on Saturday evening.
“On behalf of all the citizens of Israel, I send my condolences to the Di Mafart family for the murder of the two wonderful sisters, Rina and Maya Zakharan, in the severe attack in the Bekaa,” he wrote.
“In these moments, if the family is fighting for its life, and together with the entire nation of Israel, I pray for its safety, and we all send our condolences and strength to this dear family in this moment of great sorrow.”
בשם כל אזרחי ישראל אני שולח תנחומים למשפחת די מאפרת על רצח שתי האחיות הנפלאות, רינה ומאיה זכרן לברכה, בפיגוע הקשה בבקעה.
— Benjamin Netanyahu - בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) April 8, 2023
ברגעים אלה אם המשפחה נאבקת על חייה, ויחד עם כל עם ישראל אני מתפלל לשלומה, וכולנו שולחים תנחומים וחיזוק למשפחה היקרה הזאת ברגע יגונה הקשה. pic.twitter.com/QU52HpTl2M
The shooting in the West Bank killed the two sisters, in their 20s, and seriously wounded their 45-year-old mother near an Israeli settlement in the Jordan Valley, Israeli and British officials said.
The family lived in the Efrat settlement, near the Palestinian city of Bethlehem, said Oded Revivi, the settlement’s mayor. Medics said they dragged the unconscious women from their smashed car, which appeared to have been pushed off the road.
Palestinian assailants carried out a pair of attacks on Friday, killing three people and wounding at least six as tensions soared after days of fighting at Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, officials said.
Earlier in the day, retaliatory Israeli airstrikes had hit Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, sparking fears of a broader conflict.
Israeli authorities said an Italian tourist was killed and five other Italian and British citizens were wounded when a car rammed into a group of tourists in Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial hub.
The violence in Israel and the West Bank heightened fears of an even more intense surge, with the rare convergence of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, the Jewish Passover holiday and Easter currently underway.
Mr Netanyahu said he was calling up all reserve forces in Israel’s border police, a paramilitary force usually deployed to suppress Palestinian unrest, “to confront the terror attacks.”
The additional border police would be activated on Sunday and join other units that have recently been deployed in Jerusalem and Lod, a town in central Israel with a mixed Jewish and Palestinian population.
Israel had unleashed rare airstrikes on Lebanon and bombarded the Gaza Strip on Friday morning, but later in the day there were signs that both sides were trying to keep the border hostilities in check.
The fighting subsided after dawn, and midday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem — a flashpoint for violence in recent days — passed peacefully.
The round of violence erupted after Israeli police raided the mosque earlier in the week, sparking unrest in the contested capital and outrage across the Arab world.
Militants fired an unusually large rocket barrage at Israel from southern Lebanon on Thursday — some of the heaviest and most serious cross-border violence since Israel’s 2006 war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militants — as well as from Gaza.
In the Tel Aviv car-ramming late Friday, the alleged attacker rammed his vehicle into a group of civilians near a popular seaside park, police said.
Israel’s rescue service said a 30-year-old Italian man was killed, while five other British and Italian tourists — including a 74-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl — were receiving medical treatment for mild to moderate injuries
.Police said they shot and killed the driver of the car and identified him as a 45-year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel from the village of Kafr Qassem.
A video circulating on social media showed the car hurtling along a sidewalk for several hundred yards (meters) before crashing out of control.
Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s office expressed “closeness to the family of the victim” and “solidarity with the Israel for the vile attack.” She identified the man killed as Alessandro Parini from Rome.
No groups claimed responsibility for either attack. But the Hamas militant group that rules Gaza praised both incidents as retaliation for Israeli raids earlier this week on the Al-Aqsa mosque — the third-holiest site in Islam.
On Tuesday, police arrested and beat hundreds of Palestinians there, who responded by hurling rocks and firecrackers at officers.
Nearly 90 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire in the West Bank since the start of the year, at least half of them affiliated with militant groups, according to an Associated Press tally.
During that time, 17 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis — all but one of them civilians.“It’s just a matter of time, and not much time, until we settle the score,” Mr Netanyahu said as he toured the site of the deadly shooting in the West Bank with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“We acted in Lebanon, we acted in Gaza, we beefed up forces in the field.”
