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Anger, Protests and Call for Calm After Killing of Israeli Soldier An Israeli Sergeant Is Shot Dead in the West Bank as a Second Is Remembered
(about 11 hours later)
JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel responded on Sunday to the killing of an Israeli soldier by a Palestinian co-worker with a vow to fight “terror with all the means at our disposal,” as other politicians suggested that the episode threatened Israel’s nascent peace talks with the Palestinians. BAT YAM, Israel — An Israeli soldier was fatally shot in the West Bank city of Hebron on Sunday, apparently by a Palestinian sniper, in the second deadly attack on the Israeli military this weekend. Killings of Israelis have become relatively rare in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. While there appeared to be no direct link between the two latest episodes, they jolted Israeli complacency, fed popular distrust of Palestinians and deepened skepticism about the recently resumed Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
“The people of Israel share your loss,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a message to the soldier’s family. “This atrocious act proves once again that the battle against terror is unending.” Naftali Bennett, a right-wing minister in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, called for a re-examination of the government’s decision to release batches of long-serving Palestinian security prisoners from Israeli jails in the coming months as part of the American-brokered peace effort.
The Israeli authorities said that the co-worker, Nidal Omar, 42, had persuaded the soldier, Sgt. Tomer Hazan, 20, with whom he worked at a restaurant outside Tel Aviv, to get into a taxi with him on Friday. Mr. Omar took him to a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and then to his family’s village nearby, later killing him and hiding his body in a well, they said. The Israeli military identified the latest victim as Sgt. Gabriel Koby, 20, from the city of Tirat Hacarmel and said in a statement that he was hit by direct gunfire aimed at a group of soldiers who were guarding the Jewish settlement in Hebron and the thousands of civilians visiting the city for the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
Mr. Omar hoped to use the soldier’s body as leverage to pressure Israel to release his brother from prison, officials said, a strategy the military said had been a growing threat from Palestinian militants in recent months. Barely two hours before the Hebron shooting, another Israeli soldier, Sgt. Tomer Hazan, 20, was buried in a military cemetery near the Tel Aviv suburb of Bat Yam. Sergeant Hazan was killed Friday by a Palestinian man with whom the sergeant worked at a restaurant and who lured him to the West Bank.
Eight Palestinians in all were arrested on Saturday on suspicion of involvement in the case. Angry Israelis demonstrating Sunday night outside the Bat Yam restaurant where both Sergeant Hazan and his killer had worked held a sign reading, “Bibi is good for terrorists,” using the prime minister’s nickname.
It remained unclear Sunday how Mr. Omar had persuaded Sergeant Hazan to go with him to the village, which is unusual for Israelis, and something the authorities constantly warn soldiers against. But a woman who identified herself as a friend of the dead soldier told Army Radio Sunday that Mr. Omar had tried to lure Israelis before, and other reports in the Israeli news media suggested he might have used a business or criminal deal as pretext. In a move apparently intended to appease the right wing, Mr. Netanyahu gave the go-ahead for Jews to move into a building they recently bought in Hebron, saying, “We will continue with one hand to fight terrorism and terrorists, and with the other hand, to strengthen Jewish settlement.”
“Nidal must have been planning this for a very long time; he must have tried to make deals with us,” the woman, who did not give her name, said in the radio interview. “He didn’t have his eye on Tomer right away. At first, he tried to take other people. But it seems Tomer fell for this because Tomer is naïve.” Earlier on Sunday, Bat Yam residents lighted memorial candles on the sidewalk outside the shuttered shawarma restaurant, Tzahi Meats, arranging them to spell out the dead soldier’s name in Hebrew. The restaurant owner has come under attack for having hired a Palestinian worker who, Israeli authorities said, did not hold a valid permit for working in Israel. A banner hanging outside the restaurant announced that it would be closed for the coming week as a token of shared grief with the family of Sergeant Hazan, who served in an administrative day job in the Air Force’s pilotless drone unit.
Protesters — who noted that Mr. Omar had been hired despite lacking the required permit to work or live in Israel — continued to gather Sunday in Bat Yam, a coastal city south of Tel Aviv, outside the shuttered restaurant, where memorial candles spelled out the soldier’s name and the owner posted a banner expressing sorrow. A funeral for Sergeant Hazan, who had been in the Air Force, was planned for 4 p.m. Sunday. “Is that what Tomer’s life is worth? A week?” said one local resident who asked to be identified only by her first name, Kalanit, to avoid tensions with her neighbors. “Arabs should not be employed in this town, period,” she added.
In a separate case, the Israel police announced that a soldier was arrested on Saturday and accused of driving 23 Palestinians lacking work permits from the West Bank into the center of Israel. Sergeant Hazan’s death touched a nerve in a country where most 18-year-olds are drafted for years of compulsory military service. It came amid many warnings by the Israeli military of Palestinian plots to abduct Israeli soldiers. Israeli security officials said that Nidal Amer, 42, who confessed to killing Sergeant Hazan and concealing his body in a water well, told investigators that he had hoped to trade the soldier’s body for the release of a brother who is serving a 30-year term in an Israeli prison for his role in attacks on Israelis.
Sergeant Hazan’s killing followed several episodes this summer in which Israeli soldiers killed Palestinians during night raids in the West Bank, heightening tension between the two sides as a series of secret negotiations took place. The death reignited Israeli fears amid reports that 37 plots to abduct soldiers had been thwarted so far this year, far more than in 2012, and revived the debate over Israel’s release last month of the first 26 of a promised 100-plus long-serving Palestinian prisoners as part of the Washington-brokered peace talks. It remained unclear how Mr. Amer persuaded the soldier to share a taxi with him to just outside Beit Amin, where most of the suspect’s family lives. There was speculation in Israel that the soldier had been tempted by what he thought would be some kind of lucrative deal.
“The rationale behind the murder of the soldier is tragic proof that the release of terrorists is wrong,” said Tzipi Hotovely, a right-wing Parliament member from Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party. “The Palestinian masses now believe that the kidnapping of soldiers or bodies is an effective means to negotiate with Israel on the release of murderers.” Sergeant Hazan and Mr. Amer had lived not far from one another in the four months since Mr. Amer came to work at Tzahi Meats, where the soldier often served customers and made deliveries in the afternoons after getting off from his army job.
Avigdor Lieberman, a former foreign minister who is the prime minister’s political partner, said the killing proved that President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority “has no desire or intention of peace with the people of Israel.” Complaining that there had been no official condemnation by the Palestinian leadership, Mr. Lieberman said in a Facebook post, “They continue to encourage and support the murder of Israelis.” Mr. Amer has a wife and eight children in the Arab-Israeli town of Jaljulia in central Israel, but people living and working in the vicinity of Tzahi Meats said he stayed mostly with other Arab workers in an apartment in a rundown building nearby. Nobody was in the first-floor apartment on Sunday, but T-shirts with the Tzahi Meats logo, a pair of jeans and several towels hung on a washing line.
But Shelly Yacimovich, a Labor Party lawmaker who leads Israel’s opposition, called on Mr. Netanyahu “not to surrender to terror and to continue the negotiations.” And Robert Serry, the United Nations special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, noted in a statement that “this shocking murder follows a series of violent incidents in the West Bank” and said that the need for calm is “all the more important at this critical moment in the political process.” Sergeant Hazan’s family apartment is within walking distance of the restaurant.
According to Mr. Omar’s relatives, he is married to an Israeli citizen, lives in the Arab-Israeli town of Jaljulia with her and their eight children, and had earned about $2,500 a month at the Bat Yam shop for the past four years. Yarin Palas, 19, who works a couple of doors from Tzahi Meats, said Mr. Amer had prepared his lunch sandwich every day. Like many neighbors here who knew Sergeant Hazan and Mr. Amer, Mr. Palas described Mr. Amer as a friendly type who never aroused suspicion.
But Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli military spokesman, said Mr. Omar was working and living in Israel illegally. But Mr. Palas recalled one conversation with Mr. Amer that, with hindsight, had taken on a dark overtone. “Once he asked me if I was a soldier,” Mr. Palas said. “It seems he was looking for a soldier.”
Colonel Lerner said Mr. Omar’s imprisoned brother, Nur ad-Din Omar, had been incarcerated since 2003 and was a member of the Tanzim militia, an offshoot of the Fatah faction. Despite their physical proximity, Sergeant Hazan and Mr. Amer came from very different worlds.
Another brother, Mahmoud Abdullah Omar, said Nur Omar was serving a 30-year sentence for a shooting that had injured Israel soldiers. Mahmoud Omar said six of his brothers were among those arrested on Saturday, after a large Israeli force stormed the family compound at 3 a.m. with three dogs and stayed until 4 p.m. Mr. Amer appears to have been partly estranged from much of his family. His wife of 18 years, Najat Qremta, said he had more or less abandoned her and their children. He had stopped paying rent on their apartment a few years ago, so she and her children live in one windowless room.
“I condemn what he did a million times,” said Mahmoud Omar, who was not arrested. “He ruined our lives.” Relatives in Beit Amin said Mr. Amer spent most of his time in Israel and visited only once every month or two.
The Facebook page of the Bat Yam restaurant, Tzahi Meats, was filled on Sunday with angry posts on the hiring of Palestinian workers, with several calling on the owner to close its doors and one suggesting he reopen in the West Bank city near where the killing took place. The owner told an Israeli television station on Saturday night that he believed Mr. Omar had the proper work permit. Mr. Amer’s mother, Fatima, 74, said he had come to the house on Friday afternoon carrying a bag. He was silent, smoked a lot and looked tired, she said.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 news, the owner, who was not identified, said of Sergeant Hazan, “He was like my son — there’s no other boy like him.” He added that Mr. Omar “was on good terms with everyone, nice as can be.” His father, Abdullah, said: “It is against our principles to kill a man who gave you his trust. It does not matter if he is Jewish or non-Jewish.”

Reporting was contributed by Said Ghazali from Beit Amin, West Ban; Carol Sutherland and Irit Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem; and Isabel Kershner and Rina Castelnuovo from Bat Yam.

On a steep hill in the West Bank, a farmer pointed out the shallow well with a single bloodstain where he said Sergeant Hazan’s body had been hidden.
The sergeant was known as a kind, fun-loving young man who was well loved by his family and friends. Relatives who eulogized him in the crowded cemetery described him as an enthusiastic participant in the noisy karaoke parties that are popular in Bat Yam.
One of his three brothers, Ophir, described Sergeant Hazan in the eulogy as the family’s fashion and hairstyle consultant who was always in motion. Whenever he told his brother to slow down and rest, he said, Sergeant Hazan replied, “You only live once.”

Said Ghazali contributed reporting from Jaljulia, Israel, and Beit Amin, West Bank; Nayef Hashlamoun from Hebron, West Bank; and Jodi Rudoren from Jerusalem.