The Israel Defense Force has added and intensified the concentration of troops in Judea and Samaria following the murder early Thursday of 19-year-old IDF hesder yeshiva soldier Dvir (Yehuda) Sorek hy’d who was attacked “while neither armed nor in uniformed, close to the yeshiva where he was studying,” the IDF said.
The young soldier was laid to rest Thursday night at the cemetery in his home community of Ofra, in Samaria.
IDF Special Forces as well as regular active and reserve forces, along with Shin Bet intelligence agents have been conducting searches in the Arab village of Fajar, near the site where the soldier’s body was found.
Sorek’s body was found near the Gush Etzion Jewish community of Migdal Oz with multiple stab wounds, hours after he had been reported missing. The young soldier, a resident of the Samaria community of Ofra, he had only recently enlisted and was at the first stage of his military service and had not yet begun his training.
Gaza’s ruling Hamas terrorist organization issued a statement together with the allied Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group, praising the killers.
“We salute our people’s heroic fighters, who carried out the heroic operation that killed a soldier in the occupation’s army, who was studying at a military college known for graduating extremists that support killing our people and seizing its lands,” the Iranian-backed terrorists said in their statement. “The Etzion attack is the most powerful response to the talk of an [Israeli] attempt to annex the occupied West Bank. . . the attack proves that Israel failed to prevent the resistance. Our intifada in the West Bank continues,” the group said.
In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed during a visit to the scene of the murder that Israel would track down the bloodthirsty killers, each and every one.
“I said this morning that the Land of Israel was purchased in travail. Here we lost Dvir, a precious son of the Sorek family, who lost also their grandfather Rabbi Harling, just a few years ago. Our hearts are with them. We embrace them in these difficult hours.
“I come now from the Kirya (military base) where I received joint updates, including from the head of the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) and now from the General.
Our answer to these murderers is two-fold,” he said. “First of all, they come to destroy, we build. Second, our hands will catch them and we will settle the score with them. The investigation is advancing and it is huge. I can only tell you that we see here the turn that the car made after that criminal deed, that murder.
“In recent years, security forces led by the Shin Bet have found all the murderers. I have no doubt, also based on what I have heard, that we will also catch those who carried out this terrible murder, we’ll settle the score with them and with those who sent them.”