TERROR RETURNS: Harav Eitam and Naama Henkin Hy”d: Couple Shot Dead In Car In Northern Samaria, Four Children Rescued

An Israeli Jewish couple was shot dead in their vehicle on Thursday night in northern Samaria.

According to Magen David Adom paramedics, Rav Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, who were in their 30s, were found dead at the scene with wounds to their torso. Four of their children, including a 4-month-old baby, a 4-year-old, a 7-year-old, and a 9-year-old, were recused from the car and were unharmed.

Rav Eitam was a son of Rabbi Yehuda and Chana Henkin, who moved to Eretz Yisroel from the United States in the 1970s. Chana runs the Nishmat Institute, a Jewish learning institution that was one of the first to teach women Gemara and halacha. Rav Eitam, who was the author of several volumes of shailos uteshuvos, also served as the school’s halachic authority. He was known as a talmid chochom with vast knowledge of Torah.

Rav Eitam was a great-grandson of Rav Yosef Eliyahu Henkin zt”l, the renowned American posek.

The terrorist attack occurred near the Jewish communities of Elon Moreh and Itamar in Samaria. The IDF was searching the area as of late Thursday night.

“It was a very difficult scene,” said Magen David Adom paramedic Boaz Malka, who was one of the first to arrive on the scene.

“We saw a vehicle in the middle of the road, and a man in his thirties lying next to it with wounds in his upper torso. Inside the car sat a woman in her 30s, also with severe wounds to her upper torso. They were without any signs of life, and unfortunately we were forced to pronounce them dead at the scene,” he said.

Israeli leaders blamed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for inciting the attack by announcing at the United Nations a day earlier that Palestinians would no longer abide by the 1993 Oslo Accords.

“Abu Mazen’s (Abbas’s) marching order was answered this evening in Israel, and it is red with blood,” said Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the Jewish Home party. “A nation whose leaders incite murder will never have a state, and that has to be said clearly. The time for talking is over. Now is the time for action.”

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said, “Tonight, bloodthirsty murderers claimed the lives of a mother and a father, leaving their young children orphaned. The heart breaks at the magnitude of such cruelty and hatred. We will continue in our brave and unwavering fight against this cruel and heinous terrorism—of this our enemies can be sure. This is our duty, and the only way we can ensure the right of the orphans who lost their parents tonight, along with the right of all our children and grandchildren, to live with security and in peace, everywhere in the Land of Israel.”

צילום: אהוד אמיתון – סוכנות תצפית

{Matzav.com Israel News Bureau, JNS} Top Photo: Ynet