Israeli wounded in Samaria terrorist ambush

A father of five was lightly wounded early Wednesday morning when two Palestinian terrorists infiltrated the settlement of Eli, south of Nablus, and attacked him in his home, as the wave of violence against Israel entered its sixth month.

Roee Harel was lightly wounded in the attack and was transported to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem for treatment. The terrorists, both 17, were shot dead by IDF soldiers. They were identified as high school students Labeeb Azzam and Mohammed Zakhloul.

"Two terrorists infiltrated from the adjacent village of Qaryut," Binyamin Council head Avi Roeh told Reuters Television. "They came here to cause harm, to murder Jews, to put it in simple terms. A miracle happened. It could have ended differently. They met a man who was about to leave for a month of reserve duty and he fought back with determination."

The terrorists had been armed with clubs, and a knife was also later recovered from the scene of the attack.

"I was getting ready to leave the house for reserve duty at 5:30 a.m., and when I opened the door I saw them with axes and clubs and they started attacking me," Harel recounted later.

"A struggle immediately erupted and they struck me with clubs. I fought them for several seconds while they beat me and I managed to push them out and lock the door, with my family inside."

After being treated at the hospital, Harel added that "if anyone has any doubts regarding their [the terrorists'] intentions, these were two 17-year-old boys who came to butcher me, my wife and the kids.

"During the seconds that I struggled with them, my thought was that the massacres of the Gavish and Fogel families, whom I knew, would not happen here at my house," he said. He was referring to the murders by Palestinian terrorists of four members of the Gavish family in Elon Moreh in 2002 and five members of the Fogel family in Itamar in 2011.

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