Two Israelis were killed, and six were wounded in a terrorist shooting attack near Havat Gilad in Samaria on Friday morning, after a group of Israeli hikers was ambushed by Palestinian terrorists who stole their security escort’s weapon and opened fire. The dead were identified as Benayahu Melet, 32, a member of the community’s rapid-response security team and its agriculture director, and Maj. Yuval Ezra, 27, of Herzliya, a battery commander in the 411th Battalion of the 282nd Artillery Regiment, died of his wounds after the attack. Magen David Adom evacuated six wounded, one in serious condition, one moderate, and four lightly hurt.
Melet rushed to help the hikers after they came under fire near the Palestinian village of Tell and was killed by several terrorists during the rescue attempt. He is survived by his wife and two daughters, ages 12 and 13. The IDF said the terrorist who carried out the shooting was killed by soldiers moments after he opened fire, and troops recovered the stolen weapon; three other Palestinians were killed and four wounded in the gunfight that followed. The IDF and Shin Bet said later Friday that Duvdevan commandos had arrested two of the attackers at a hospital in Shechem (Nablus), where they had gone for treatment of their wounds, and that all those involved had been identified, with efforts continuing to apprehend the rest.
“The Gates of Hell Must Be Opened Upon Them”
Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, speaking Friday on Galei Zahal (IDF Radio), delivered the sharpest response to the attack, framing it as a matter that should define the country’s political priorities. “There is a need here for great revenge,” Eliyahu said. “The gates of hell must be opened upon them — upon that despicable village of murderers.” He said Melet had died as he had lived. “I met Benayahu, of blessed memory, on the night of Tisha B’Av. He was one of those people who sacrificed himself to save other Jews. He literally risked his life. It is a great merit for the Jewish people that there are such righteous individuals. People like him saved children from burning homes and vehicles,” the rabbi said, recalling that Melet had also rushed to save lives during an earlier arson attack on Havat Gilad on Shabbat.
Eliyahu also called for the immediate enforcement of Israel’s law permitting the deportation of terrorists. “There is a law stating that terrorists should be expelled from the country, and it must be carried out,” he said. “Those who prevent the implementation of this law have blood on their hands. An official who refuses to enforce this law should be sent to prison.” The rabbi went further still, arguing that the attack should reorder the terms of the country’s upcoming election campaign entirely. “This is the issue of the elections, not other trivial matters that distract us from what is essential,” he said, calling on candidates to put security, deterrence and the fight against terrorism at the center of their campaigns.
The Government Responds
Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan arrived at the scene and described Melet as “a man among men” who had devoted himself to his family, the Land of Israel and his community’s security. “I have known him since he was a child. He had a heart of gold, was a devoted family man and came from a deeply rooted family,” Dagan said. “Terror will not break us. The response must be offensive: We must relentlessly pursue the terrorists and strike terrorism with full force.” He said the answer to the attack must be “a stronger and greater Samaria.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he and his wife “share in the profound grief of the families” of the two men, calling their actions heroic. “Yuval and Benayahu acted with heroism and engaged the heinous terrorists to protect our citizens. Their courage and sacrifice will be etched in our hearts forever,” he said. Netanyahu later convened Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir to set Israel’s response. “We will act with full force against the terrorists and those who sent them, and we will not allow terrorism in Judea and Samaria to raise its head,” he said. The two leaders ordered the demolition of the home of the terrorist who carried out the shooting, intensified operations in villages identified as terrorist strongholds, including weapons confiscation and revoked work permits, additional troop reinforcements throughout Judea and Samaria, new checkpoints separating traffic routes, and the acceleration of legalization for existing agricultural outposts, along with the establishment of new ones. The IDF said Sunday that it had mapped the homes of both the shooter and the terrorist who had stolen the weapon, in preparation for sealing and demolishing them.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir called for a far tougher line still. “The towns and villages of the murderers in Judea and Samaria should be treated the same way as Beit Hanoun in Gaza,” he wrote on social media, urging the IDF to demolish the homes of terrorists and their supporters using airstrikes and D9 armored bulldozers. “For every Jew who is murdered, the enemy must lose land and homes,” he wrote. President Isaac Herzog said his “heart breaks at the news” and praised the security forces’ response: “In the face of murderous terror seeking to harm our lives and our security, we must stand united and resolute. Terror will not prevail.” Yisrael Gantz, head of the Yesha Council and the Binyamin Regional Council, said the shooting could not be viewed in isolation. “The ground is burning, literally,” Gantz said. “The wave of arson attacks, attempted terrorist attacks, and the Palestinian Authority’s ongoing incitement are part of a single campaign aimed at harming the settlements and the citizens of Israel. Judea and Samaria are not a secondary arena. It is a central front for the State of Israel, and policy here must change accordingly.”
The Havat Gilad shooting followed two stabbing attacks in northern Samaria the day before, in which two terrorists attacked an Israeli civilian near Itamar after he approached a brush fire, and another lightly wounded an IDF soldier near Ganim; Israeli forces killed all three attackers. The IDF carried out counterterrorism raids afterward in Beit Furik and Tubas, searching homes and questioning suspects.
A Pattern Since October 7
Friday’s attack adds to a toll that has climbed steadily since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre triggered the war in Gaza. At least 68 civilians and Israeli security personnel have now been killed in terror attacks in Israel and Judea and Samaria since the war began, with another eight members of the security forces killed in clashes during raids on Palestinian cities in Judea and Samaria. The IDF recorded 867 incidents of nationalist crime and violence by Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria in 2025, up from 682 the year before, even as Palestinian attacks against Israelis have themselves surged, with more than 1,300 attacks recorded in Judea and Samaria in just the first nine weeks after October 7.
The Payments Behind the Attacks
Israeli officials have long argued that the Palestinian Authority’s so-called “pay-for-slay” program gives terrorists a direct financial incentive to carry out attacks like Friday’s. Despite PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s public claim last year that the program had ended, a Palestinian Media Watch analysis found the PA is set to pay $315 million in 2026 to some 23,500 terrorists and their families, more than $19 million a month, by routing the payments through the budgets of the PA security forces, its civil service and its pension office rather than the ministry that had handled them before. More than 10,000 former prisoners are currently receiving monthly stipends of roughly $1,280 to $3,800 each, while another $87 million is earmarked this year for “martyrs and injured” living in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Israeli intelligence assessed that the PA funneled $144 million to terrorists and their families in 2024 and committed at least $214 million in 2025, and the US State Department separately determined the PA paid more than $200 million to terrorists and their families that same year, even as it publicly claimed to have ended the practice.
In June, the Knesset passed a law by a 29–5 vote allowing Israel to deduct from the tax revenues it collects on the PA’s behalf the amounts the PA pays out as pay-for-slay compensation. Israel has already withheld the PA’s full clearance revenues over the past year on the grounds that the funds finance terrorists and their families; combined with frozen Gaza-related transfers, the total withheld now stands at nearly NIS 2 billion, about $600 million, roughly a fifth of the PA’s annual clearance revenue. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has repeatedly pointed to the program as a direct driver of attacks against Israelis, arguing that a system paying terrorists by the victim gives them every reason to keep killing.
