The house targeted and damaged during the fighting, was then demolished by an Israeli bulldozer.
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Soldiers carried away Fakih’s body and arrested three people, who were led away their eyes covered and loaded into military vehicles.
The IDF had also arrested Mohammed Amaira, 38, a resident of Dura who drove Faqih to the site of the attack. Over 200 Palestinians have been killed in the same time frame, 139 of whom Israel says were militants.
A heavy shooting battle is underway in the village of Tzurif, after an IDF operation to arrest a Palestinian terrorist. All of them belonged to terror group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and has seen growing popularity in the West Bank, according to the military.
Mohammed Jabarah al-Fakih, who killed Rabbi Miki Mark and injured his wife and two of his children on July 1, refused calls to surrender after the house he was hiding in the town of Surif near Hebron was surrounded by members of the Israeli Defense Forces’ elite Duvdevan unit and Israel Police’s counter-terrorism force Yamam, Ynet reported.
The area, where several hundred Jewish settlers live in a tightly guarded enclave in the heart of the city, has been a persistent source of tensions.
It issued a statement saying a Palestinian security official was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of driving Fakih to the scene of the rabbi attack.
Fakih’s brother and cousin were also held on suspicion of helping him to hide after the attack, the statement added.
The terrorist who shot up the auto, identified Muhammad al-Fakih, was killed when clashes broke out between the Israeli troops and the armed cell in the West Bank village of Surif, north of Hebron.
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Fakih was imprisoned by Israel in the past for planning terror attacks while a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but he switched his affiliation to Hamas while incarcerated.
