The name “Huwara” may be alien to most readers, but it’s a village located on Route 60, near Nablus, and serves as a main artery for the thousands of residents of communities such as Yitzhar, Itamar, Elon Moreh, and Har Bracha
At 1:30 on Sunday afternoon Hillel and Yagel Yaniv Hy”d set out from their home in Har Bracha toward the yeshivos where they learn — Yagel at Givat Olga near Hadera, and Hillel at the Kiryat Shmona yeshivah, to which he had only recently returned, following his army service. They were taking their normal route through the village of Huwara when 12 gunshots fired at point-blank range cut through the silence. Attempts at resuscitation under IDF protection failed. G-d gives and G-d takes away.
This attack brings the death toll from Palestinian terror over the last month to 13: seven in Neve Yaakov, three in Ramot, one at the Shuafat checkpoint, and to this must be added the attack in the City of David, in which two were injured. And now, with Yagel Yaakov and Hillel Menachem, two new victims enter the statistics, pure and holy yeshivah boys murdered in Huwara as they headed out to toil in Torah.
Until now, the terrorism was largely confined to the Jerusalem sector. In Samaria, and especially in Huwara, barrages of stones and Molotov cocktails have always been a matter of course. But shootings are a completely different matter. It’s important to note: never before had a Jew been murdered in Huwara. But that equation has now changed.
The first signal, though, came months ago, in mid-September 2022. Terrorists fired shots at the car of Tapuach rosh yeshivah Rabbi David Amitai, in Huwara, but he was uninjured.
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