Two suspects were arrested by Israeli forces yesterday after a security guard was shot and killed while shielding his fiancee in a terrorist attack on the West Bank.
Responsibility for the fatal shooting on Friday has been claimed by militant group Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, which described the guard at the entrance to Ariel settlement, Vyacheslav Golev, as a “Zionist officer”.
The 23-year-old was hit as gunmen driving a car with an Israeli licence plate opened fire.
His financee, Victoria Fligelman, was also on duty as a security guard at the time.
Golev used his body to shield her from the hail of bullets, saving her life, according to military officials. The couple had got engaged just a few weeks before.
The gunmen quickly fled the scene of the attack. After a manhunt, two armed suspects were arrested yesterday in a Palestinian village to the north-west of Ariel, Qarawat Bani Hassan.
A police spokesman said: “After intense intelligence and operational activity by the [domestic security agency] Shin Bet, police special forces and the army, two suspects were arrested this evening.”
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said following the arrests: “There is no terrorist that we will not reach, and settle the score. Our war with terror is long, and together we will win."
Defence minister Benny Gantz tweeted: “The state of Israel has always defeated terrorism and will do everything necessary to defeat it."
Al-Aqsa Martys Brigade, the militant of wing of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah faction, linked the attack to recent clashes around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
The terror group said: “We claim responsibility for the heroic operation in the colony of Ariel in which a Zionist officer was killed, in response to violations committed by the occupation government in Jerusalem.”
The claim of responsibility for the killing has not been confirmed.
Mr Golev was a former student at Ariel University and came from an ultra-Orthodox family.
The youngest of eight children, he is survived by his parents and siblings.
