JERUSALEM -- A Palestinian youth jumped over a security fence into a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Thursday, entered a family home and stabbed to death a 13-year-old girl as she slept in her bedroom, Israeli officials said.
Security cameras caught the assailant climbing the fence, but officers arrived at the house in the settlement of Kiryat Arba minutes too late. The girl, identified as Hallel Yaffe Ariel, had already been stabbed several times. She died on her way to a hospital.
The Associated Press reported that Hallel was a U.S. citizen.
Her attacker, identified as Mohammad Tra'ayra, 17, from the nearby village of Bani Na'im, was shot dead at the scene, a statement from the Israeli military said.
Israeli media published a video of the attack in Kiryat Arba. In the footage, Hallel's's father, Amichai Ariel, is seen arriving at his family home after the attack and finding his daughter bleeding on her bedroom floor. The family is related to Uri Ariel, the Israeli minister of agriculture.
"My daughter was simply asleep, calm and serene. She was happy, and a terrorist came to her bed, in Kiryat Arba, and killed her," said Hallel's mother, Rina. "I want everyone to see our pain and to come console us. Hallel, may your memory be a blessing."
Immediately after the attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security briefing with his new defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman. It was decided to seal off entry to and exit from the assailant's village and to revoke permits to enter Israel for work for all members of his clan. Procedures for demolishing his family home have already begun, a statement from the prime minister's bureau said.
"The horrifying murder of a young girl in her bed underscores the blood lust and inhumanity of the incitement-driven terrorists that we are facing," Netanyahu said.
He called on the Palestinian leadership to condemn the killing and "take immediate action to stop incitement."
U.S. officials also condemned the killing.
"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the outrageous terrorist attack this morning in the West Bank where a 13-year-old girl, Hallel Ariel, was stabbed to death in her home," the State Department said in a statement. "This brutal act of terrorism is simply unconscionable."
Roughly 7,800 Israelis live in Kiryat Arba, which sits on the edge of the largest Palestinian city, Hebron. It is not far from one of the main flash points between Israelis and Palestinians: the holy site that Israelis refer to as the Cave of the Patriarchs and Palestinians as the Ibrahimi Mosque.
After Thursday's attack, Yochai Damri, regional council head for Jewish settlements in the Hebron area, called on the government to take tougher action and intensify building in Israeli settlements in the Hebron Hills.
Israel's minister of transportation and intelligence, Israel Katz, urged that the family of the Palestinian assailant be expelled immediately to either Syria or Gaza to try to deter terrorism. Israel's policy has been to destroy the family homes of the assailants.
"Only the expulsion of families of terrorists can be used as a deterrent against acts of murder, which are incited by young people educated to hate and kill Jews," Katz said.
The attack is the latest in a wave of violence between Palestinians and Israelis that began nine months ago but has tapered off recently. It also prompted calls for increased security in Israeli settlements, which Palestinians and most of the international community condemn as illegal.
Later Thursday, two Israelis -- a middle-aged man and an elderly woman -- were stabbed and wounded, one critically, in the coastal town of Netanya. The assailant, a Palestinian from the West Bank town of Tukarem, was shot dead at the scene, Israeli authorities said.
Five Palestinians, including two police officers, were killed in two overnight shootings in the West Bank, Palestinian police said Thursday.
Police spokesman Loaie Izrekat said 16 others were injured in the shootings.
In one attack, a Palestinian shot at the home of a police officer in the town of Nablus. When police arrived to investigate, they came under fire and two officers were killed, Izrekat said.
Three more Palestinians were killed in a shootout between two clans that was sparked by an argument over a wedding hall in the town of Yaabad in the northern West Bank, Izrekat said. He said the argument escalated into clashes, with rival clans setting houses ablaze and firing at each other in the street. Palestinian police imposed a curfew on Yaabad to restore order.
Meanwhile, the U.N.'s Mideast envoy said Thursday that international mediators seeking to revive Mideast peace negotiations will call on Israel to reverse settlement expansion, the Palestinian Authority to assert control over Gaza, and demand an end to "violence, terrorism and incitement."
Nicolay Mladenov told the Security Council that a soon-to-be released report by the Quartet of Mideast negotiators -- the U.N., U.S., European Union and Russia -- will recommend ways to address these negative trends and call on Israel once again to implement "positive and significant policy shifts" to give the Palestinians greater civil authority.
Mladenov expressed hope that both sides "will find the strength to go beyond the criticism" in the report, which he said is expected to be released today, and engage with the Quartet to move the peace process forward.
Information for this article was contributed by Josef Federman, Mohammed Daraghmeh and Edith M. Lederer of The Associated Press and by Ruth Eglash of The Washington Post.
A Section on 07/01/2016