Israeli man killed in West Bank

An Israeli man was killed and a woman injured in an apparent militant attack by Palestinians on their West Bank home, police said early Friday. It was the third violent death of an Israeli in the occupied territory in less than three weeks. "They were beaten with blunt instruments," at Brosh, in the northern Jordan valley, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP, adding that the assumption was "definitely" of a militant attack. The army said that roadblocks had been set up in the area of the attack and security forces were searching for the perpetrators. An AFP photographer said that police stopped media at the gates of the property and did not allow them to enter. Israeli public radio said that the couple were in their home at around 1:00 am (2200 GMT) when they heard a noise outside and the sound of dogs barking. The man went outside to investigate and was attacked with iron bars and axes by two Palestinians, it reported. His wife was also injured but escaped and raised the alarm. The radio said that he couple lived alone at the isolated property, which they ran as a holiday home. There were no visitors at the time, it said. Haaretz daily's website said that the dead man was a retired army colonel and that the couple were in their 50s. News site Ynet cited a witness as saying that as the woman was taken to an ambulance she cried out, "leave me, go to him, help him." Local council leader David Elhayani said that he reached the scene about half an hour after the assault. "It was a brutal murder," he told public radio." "At the moment every body?s assessment is that this was a (Palestinian) nationalist attack whose goal was murder." "Even after the woman fled the house they ran after her calling out to one another in Arabic 'where is she?'" Ynet said that the injured woman crawled through the darkness alone and with no mobile telephone before reaching a main road where she flagged down a passing motorist. The incident occurred less than a week after a nine-year-old Israeli girl was lightly wounded as she played in her garden in the West Bank settlement of Psagot, near Ramallah. Her injuries have been described both as gunshot and stabbing. Two young Palestinian suspects were arrested on Monday, Haaretz daily reported. On September 22 an Israeli soldier was shot dead in the southern West Bank city of Hebron, in what the army believes was a Palestinian sniper attack, although no suspects have been arrested. A day earlier a 20-year-old off-duty soldier was found murdered near the West Bank city of Qalqiliya. A Palestinian arrested as a suspect has reportedly confessed, but the motive and circumstances of the killing are still unclear. Source: AFP