Four Israelis were killed on Tuesday night when gunmen opened fire on their car at the entrance to Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, in the West Bank.YNet says it was a well-planned ambush:
The attack occurred around 7:30 P.M. on Route 60. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Magen David Adom reported that the victims were two men aged 25 and 40 and two women, also aged 25 and 40. Channel 2 news reported that the victims were all members of the same family, and that one of the women was pregnant.
A Palestinian security official said that a Hamas cell is believed to be behind the lethal attacks. He noted that the last attack in the Hebron region, which left an Israeli police officer killed, was also the work of Hamas.
Ha'aretz Hebrew quotes a Magen Dovid adom paramedica as saying that he saw "a car riddled with dozens of bullets; inside were the four bodies and there was no chance to help them."Haaretz:
The victims were all residents of the settlement of Beit Hagai in the southern Hebron Hills.Beit Haggai was named for the initials of three yeshiva students who were killed in a terror attack in Kiryat Arba in 1980.
Hamas is not claiming responsibility at this time, but is saying that this is a "natural response to Israeli crimes."
Here is my essay on "natural responses" from 2008.
UPDATE: Israel Matzav says that it was a couple who left behind 7 children, plus two hitch-hikers.
UPDATE:
"When we arrived on the scene, all four doors of the car were open and four bodies were strewn on the road," Magen David Adom paramedic Guy Ronen told The Jerusalem Post. "We saw that the vital organs had been struck by a very large number of bullets, and that there was no chance of saving their lives," he added.Backspin looks at the disgraceful way AP illustrates the story.