An Israeli man was sipping tea with his family on the porch of his home in the West Bank settlement of Tekoa on Sunday evening when he spotted an armed Palestinian trying to scale the security fence. The man, a father of seven, rushed his family inside and grabbed his M16 rifle and shot the terrorist.
“I was sitting with my wife and children on the balcony and we drank a cup of tea,” Yair Maimon recounted. “Suddenly I saw a guy climbing a pole in a fence next to my house. I shouted at him ‘Who are you?’ And he mumbled something indecipherable. I immediately realized it was a terrorist attack. I rushed my wife and children inside the house, and told them to close the doors. I took out the gun.
As a civilian member of the settlement’s security team, Maimon is allowed to possess a weapon.
His 13-year-old daughter caught the whole incident on her camera phone. She can be heard saying “Die!” to the terrorist once her father had shot him, before bursting into tears and exclaiming, “Mommy!”
““We’re confident, we trust the security establishment and we trust ourselves. When facing terror of this kind we need to know how to prevent similar incidents from happening again,” he added.
Israel’s Interior Minister Ayelet Shaked described Maimon as a hero.
“Bravo to the Tekoa resident, a hero, who prevented a terrible disaster, protected his family, and took action in order to end this incident exactly as he should have done — by taking out the terrorist. I call on anyone who is able to carry a weapon to do so, in order to strengthen our security forces. Together we will win,” she said.
The terrorist was later identified as 17-year-old Muatasem Mohammad Taleb Atallah, a member of the Hamas terror group.
Hamas on Sunday warned it go back to carrying out suicide bombings and to “burn down” Israeli cities if Israel targets its senior members, as it has done in the past when faced with waves of terror.
A masked spokesperson of the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades, a faction affiliated to the Fateh movement, is pictured holding a M16 assault rifle in the West Bank town of Jenin on April 12, 2022. With M16s, road blocks and encrypted Telegram chats, West Bank terrorists attack Israeli forces in Jenin where the gunman who went on a Tel Aviv shooting spree is hailed as a martyr. (JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP via Getty Images)
“We will burn the cities in [the country’s] center and launch missiles at Tel Aviv and Gush Dan if Israel acts on its threats, those of which surpasses the enemy’s imagination,” a spokesman for the terror group warned.
Sinwar, this week threatened that if Israel “violates” the Al Aqsa Mosque, it would launch another war.
According to the Haaretz daily, the suspects of a terror attack on Israel’s Independence Day that left three people dead in the city of Elad, were said to have been inspired by an incendiary speech by Sinwar calling on Palestinians and Arab Israelis to carry out terror attacks.
“Let everyone who has a rifle, ready it. And if you don’t have a rifle, ready your cleaver or an axe, or a knife,” Sinwar said.
The two suspects of Thursday’s attack, As’ad Yousef As’ad al-Rifa’i, 19, and Subhi Emad Subhi Abu Shqeir, 20, killed three men and injured seven others with axes and knives.
The spate of attacks have seen 18 people dead in recent weeks.
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