Sarsour had not been identified as a security threat, but was reportedly questioned twice by police in recent weeks after they suspected he was in Israel illegally. He had no previous security offences.
After the murder, IDF troops arrested five suspects in overnight raids in the West Bank town Sarta, some of them Sarsour’s relatives, in connection with the attack.
On Wednesday morning, Public Security Minister Omer Bar Lev said in response to the attack: “The serious attack in Holon proves once again that Palestinian terrorism has no inhibitions and no mercy. Israel fights terrorists and their agents hard and uncompromisingly everywhere and at all times, especially in the last few months as the IDF, the police and the Shin Bet work day and night in pursuit of those who seek our harm.”
Mrs Ovadiah’s murder came less than two weeks after police thwarted a mass terror attack planned by a Palestinian man caught carrying a firearm and pipe bombs in Jaffa.
