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Photo:
Israeli security forces at the site of the shooting on Monday evening Credit: Olivier Fitoussi Published by Haaretz

Scene. Published by IMEMC News

Elan Ganeles. Published by IMEMC News
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by Hagar Shezaf, Jack Khoury, Yaniv Kubovich and Ben Samuels for Haaretz
Feb 27, 2023 5:39 pm IST

A 27-year-old Israeli was killed in a shooting attack in the West Bank near the Dead Sea on Monday.

The army is searching for the assailants, who they believe fled towards Jericho. After the shooting attack, the Palestinians then continued on their journey and fired at another car. Reports say no one was injured in the second shooting.

The victim was later identified as Israeli-American dual national, Elan Ganeles, a native of West Hartford, Connecticut who was visiting Israel for a wedding.

Following the incident, the Israeli military blocked the entrances to the city and conducting searches inside the Aqabat Jabr refugee camp - which recently emerged as a West Bank flash point after years of relative quiet.

Emergency services reported they evacuated the victim in critical condition to Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem and pronounced him dead hours later.

This follows a bloody 24 hours which saw two Israelis shot dead in the West Bank town of Hawara on Sunday, leading to a revenge rampage by hundreds of settlers who arrived in the town and burned houses and cars. One Palestinian was killed in the attack and dozens wounded.\

So far this year, 62 Palestinians, about half of them affiliated with armed groups, have been killed by Israeli troops and civilians. In the same period, 14 Israelis, all but one of them civilians, have been killed in Palestinian attacks.

Last year was the deadliest for the Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since 2004, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem. Nearly 150 Palestinians were killed in those areas, Some 30 people on the Israeli side were killed in Palestinian attacks.

Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Updated: “Israeli American Killed In Shooting Near Jericho”

by IMEMC News
Feb 27, 2023

An Israeli paramilitary colonizer was shot dead near Jericho, in the eastern part of the West Bank. He was transported by helicopter to the Israeli hospital Hadassah in Jerusalem but was pronounced dead.

Update: Israeli sources identified the man as Elan Ganeles, 2[7], an American-Israeli who grew up in Hartford, Connecticut, and lived in a religious Kibbutz in the northern part of the country.

The Times Of Israel said Elan returned to the U.S. to study at Colombia University and was attending a friend’s wedding.

Israeli media reported Genales was driving his car when he was shot by a single bullet in the upper body, causing him to lose control of his vehicle, which veered off the road and crashed. The incident took place on Road 90 near the city of Jericho.

Israeli forces closed the entrances to Jericho and invaded the Palestinian and surrounding areas to search for the perpetrators of the attack.

According to the Israeli military, the suspected gunmen allegedly set their car on fire, then fled in another vehicle toward Jericho.

The Islamic Jihad movement issued a statement praising the attack but did not claim credit for it. The group said, “the resistance operations continue, and the enemy will pay the price for all his crimes.”

The attack in Jericho followed a day of unbridled arson attacks by Israeli paramilitary settlers against Palestinian civilians in Huwwara, near Nablus in the northern West Bank.

Earlier on Monday, two Israeli Colonizers were killed in a shooting in Huwwara near Nablus.

On Sunday, a Palestinian civilian was killed by Israeli soldiers while in his home in Za’tara village. Sameh Aqtash, who was murdered by Israeli forces Sunday, was in Turkey two weeks before, volunteering with a rescue team to save lives after the earthquake.

On February 23, 2023, Israeli soldiers killed Mohammad Nabil Fawzi Abu Sabah, 29, In Jenin, in the northern West Bank.

The day before Mohammad’s death, Israeli soldiers killed eleven Palestinians, injured more than 102, six seriously, and caused more than 250 Palestinians to suffer the effects of tear gas inhalation and other minor wounds.