Following a two-day manhunt, security forces on Tuesday killed a Palestinian terrorist who carried out the stabbing and shooting attack on Sunday that left two Israelis dead at Ariel junction in Judea and Samaria.
Sgt. Gal Kaidan and Rabbi Ahiad Ettinger were killed in the attack and another soldier, Alex Dvorsky, was critically wounded.
The IDF said late Tuesday that 19-year-old suspect Omar Abu Laila was fatally shot when he opened fire on soldiers trying to arrest him. The army said troops had surrounded a building near the city of Ramallah and that Abu Laila was killed in an exchange of gunfire.
No Israeli troops were wounded during the operation.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised his forces, saying that "the long arm of Israel will reach anyone who harms our citizens and soldiers."
As of Tuesday morning, Dvorsky, who is being treated at Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikvah, showed significant improvement and is considered to be out of immediate danger.
Despite being shot in the neck and head, Ettinger, a 47-year-old yeshiva dean and father of 12 from Eli, turned his car around and began firing at Abu Laila with his personal sidearm in the hopes of neutralizing the ongoing threat to passersby.
Ettinger was also evacuated to Beilinson but succumbed to his wounds on Monday morning. He was buried in Petah Tikvah in a funeral attended by more than 1,000 people, including students from his yeshivah, Oz and Emunah in the Neve Shaanan neighborhood of south Tel Aviv.
Abu Laila's father and brother were arrested in connection with the attack.
Kaidan was buried in the military cemetery of Beersheva on Monday by his parents, who are immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union, and his two older brothers.
