2013 Tapuah Junction stabbing

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The 2013 Tapuah Junction stabbing

The victim, Evyatar Borovsky, a 32-year-old father of five. A native of Kfar Hasidim, he had been living in Yitzhar for the previous five years.^[1][6][7] His funeral took place that evening in Kfar Hasidim and was attended by more than a thousand people.^[8][9][10]

Stabbing

According to witnesses, the Palestinian arrived at the scene in a taxi.^[11] He then approached Borovsky, who was standing at a hitchhiking spot at the junction, and attacked him from behind, stabbing him in the chest. The attacker stole Borovsky's gun and used it to shoot at security forces who arrived at the scene;^[12] it was unclear whether he also shot Borovsky. The assailant was then shot and wounded by border police, arrested, and taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment. Medical teams also attempted to save Borovsky's life on the scene, but were unsuccessful.^[9][3]

Suspect

The perpetrator was identified by Palestinian groups and by the media as Palestinian man Salam As'ad Zaghal, 24, from the

The attacker was praised as a "hero" by representatives of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party, who posted pictures from the scene of the attack on the party's official Facebook page. Each image was accompanied by a caption boasting of the stabber's "success."

• A picture of the stabbing victim bore the caption "The settler who was killed today at al-Za’atara south of Nablus by the released prisoner hero Salam As’ad Zaghal from the city of Tulkarem".
• A photograph of Zaghal with illustrations of two AK-47 rifles above his head bore the caption "Peace be with you the day of your birth, on the day of your imprisonment and on the day of your freedom".^[7]

Salam Zaghal's father said: "It was destiny, and we take pride in him as a family. What he did is a duty for all Palestinians living with the aggression of the army and settlers". Israeli authorities suspect that the killing might have been an attempt to clear the family name, after the assistant's brother was accused of spying for Israel by the Palestinian authorities. The family denied this allegation.[5]

Price tag attacks

Jewish settlers on the West Bank descended on the Palestinian town of Huwara in the hours after the killing. They attacked a bus with Palestinian school-girls with stones, shattering a wind-shield and wounding the driver.^[14]

In

In what some called a "Co-ordinated attacks by settler militias on Palestinian property", a string of attacks followed on Palestinian property on the 30-day anniversary of the killing of Borovsky.[17]^[18] 7 vehicles in the Palestinian West Bank villages of Zubaidat and Marj Najah, and another 7 vehicles in East Jerusalem were all vandalised. “Regards from Eviatar. God will avenge his blood,” was sprayed in Zubaidat.^[19] The tires of three cars were punctured in Beitillu with graffiti reading, "revenge", and on a nearby wall, undersigned with "price tag" the words "regards from Baruch Tzuri to Eviatar", alluding to Evyatar Borovsky.^[20][21]

Israeli outpost creation

The Israeli outpost Evyatar was established in 2013 as a reaction to the killing and was named after the victim ^[22][23][24] The outpost was illegal and has since been razed by Israeli authorities several times.^[25]

See also

• Tapuah Junction stabbing (2010)

References