Two Israeli police officers were shot dead on Sunday in the northern city of Hadera in an attack for which ISIS took responsibility on Monday.
Israel’s authorities pointed out that the attack came as Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Yair Lapid was hosting the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and fellow ministers from the UAE, Egypt, Bahrain, and Morocco, for the Negev Summit in southern Israel.
The regional police deputy commander Dudu Boani said that the two police officers – a man and a woman – were killed when two terrorists began shooting at them after which the special police force that was at the site neutralized the attackers after a short gunfight.
According to the emergency medical responders from the Magen David Adom, two more people were treated at the scene and another four were taken to the hospital for further treatment.
The Israeli army has sent more troops into and around the West Bank following the attack, which was praised by Hamas as a heroic operation and a natural and legitimate response to Israel’s crimes against their people.
Lapid condemned the heinous terror attack, calling it violent extremists’ attempt to terrorize and damage Israel’s fabric of life. A convicted ISIS sympathizer has killed four Israelis less than a week ago in an attack that involved stabbing and car-ramming in the southern city of Beersheba.
Analysts say that two deadly attacks in the span of less than a week, which have claimed the lives of six Israeli citizens, will force Israel’s security establishment – the police and Shin Bet – to investigate in-depth how they missed the radicalization of the attackers and how were the attackers able to amass such an arsenal unnoticed?
Close to 100 Israelis joined the terror group during the height of the Islamic State’s power and Shin Bet and Israel Police arrested several Israeli-Arabs that were seeking to join the group.
Small numbers of those who joined ISIS have returned to Israel, some of them after being caught deported back to Israel by Turkish authorities while trying to cross the border. Many of those who were imprisoned for supporting ISIS was later released from prison and were not followed by police, just like in the case of the attacker in Beersheba.
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