Bani Naim, West Bank – IDF Demolishes House Of Palestinian Murderer Of Israeli Teen Killed While Asleep

Bani Naim, West Bank – The IDF early Monday morning announced that it had demolished the house of the family of Muhammad Tarayrah, 17, in the Palestinian village of Bani Naim, located near Kiryat Arba, where he murdered 13-year old Hallel Yafa Ariel in June.

Tarayrah stabbed Ariel to death in her bedroom on June 30 and injured another resident while infiltrating the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba, next to Hebron.

House demolitions of the residences of terrorists have increased since the start of the Third Intafada in the fall of 2015. Although a panel of Israeli security experts had found in 2005 that demolitions were ineffective in deterring terrorism and placed a moratorium on the practice for some years, that decision was reversed.

Many have petitioned against the IDF house demolitions and the High Court of Justice has started to push back on some of them where there was less evidence of the family of the terrorist knowing about the planned attack or where the demolition would harm adjacent residents’ properties, but most demolitions have been allowed to go forward.

“My daughter was sleeping calmly when he [the terrorist] came into her bedroom,” the girl’s mother Rena Ariel told reporters outside the hospital at the time.

A Magen David Adom paramedic said at the time that when he arrived at the scene the teenage girl, Hallel Yaffa, was unconscious and not breathing. They were able to resuscitate her at the scene, but it was touch-and-go during the ride to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, as they fought to keep her alive.

She was pronounced dead shortly after her arrival, without ever regaining consciousness.

After the attack, the IDF and one of the Prime Minister Office’s spokesman tweeted a photograph of her blood-stained bedroom.

Hallel had been a member of the dance troop Harikod and had performed in Jerusalem the night before.

In the morning she was allowed to sleep in. The rest of her family, including her younger sisters, Shira Ruth, eight, and Kana, four, left for the day.

Hallel, however, was fast asleep when Tarayrah breached the settlement’s fence, setting off an alarm that alerted residents to stay indoors.

He still had time to walk to the Ariel home, which was located in an isolated area of Kiryat Arba near its security road.

Tarayrah slipped into Hallel’s bedroom through an open window and stabbed her multiple times. He was still in the house when the settlement’s security team arrived, including Hallel’s stepfather, Amichai, who was part of the team.

They had not known that Tarayrah was in the home, they simply entered it as part of a sweep of the area. According to Amichai’s sister, they noted that something was wrong the moment they walked in.

The security team quickly found, shot and killed Tarayrah. One of its members, Shuki Gilboa, age 31, was wounded during the shooting.

Since the wave of Palestinian violence against Israelis began in September 2015, there have been many attacks in and around Hebron, as well as on the outskirts of Kiryat Arba. But an infiltration into the settlement itself is rare.

Responding at the time, Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman met and ordered the IDF to close off the Palestinian village of Bani Naim, located near Kiryat Arba, where Tarayrah lived. They also ordered the IDF to rescind work permits belonging to Tarayrah’s immediate and extended family.

According to his Facebook posts Tarayrah was partially inspired by a vehicular terror attack just outside of Kiryat Arba in which an Israeli couple was lightly insured. The IDF unit which responded to the attack shot and killed the Palestinian driver.

Tarayrah mentioned her in his posts, under the hashtag “a sister to bravery”.