Mother, Brother of Barkan Terrorist Indicted

Family and friends of Ziv Hagbi and Kim Levengrond Yehezkel who were murdered at a terror attack last month seen during a protest march in their memory at Barkan Industrial Zone, last week. (Hillel Maeir/Flash90)

More than a month after the incident, an indictment was issued against the mother and brother of Ashraf Nalaweh, the terrorist who killed Israelis Kim Levengrond Yechezkel, Hy”d, and Ziv Hajabi, Hy”d, in a terror attack at the Barkan Industrial Zone in Shomron in October. The two are charged with having knowledge of a terror attack and failing to act, as well as for assisting Nalaweh to carry out the attack.

According to the indictment, Nalaweh had acquired weapons and stored them in the family home, and would use them for target practice on a regular basis. Two weeks before the Barkan attack he informed his family that he intended to carry out an attack in order to become a “martyr.” The mother and brother had details about Nalaweh’s intentions, but did nothing.

In the attack, Nalaweh murdered Hajabi and Yechezkel in the offices of Alon Metal Works in the Barkan Industrial Zone, where he worked. Nalaweh arrived for work in the morning, carrying with him an assault rifle hidden under his clothing. As a regular employee with a work permit, he was admitted to the grounds of the industrial zone without too much scrutiny, security officials told Yediot Acharonot.

There has been an intensive search for Nalaweh over the past several weeks, but security forces as yet have been unable to find him. Searches have concentrated on the Tul Karem area, as well as in the Shechem area, where Nalaweh was thought to have fled to, as he has relatives there. He is considered armed and dangerous, but officials believe it is only a matter of time.

“He can’t hide out forever, and when he surfaces we will be there to capture him,” security officials told Hadashot News. “We are keeping the pressure on to make sure he runs out of options and is unable to organize a long-term effort to remain underground.”

Security officials told Hadashot News that one of the challenges in finding the terrorist is that he apparently acted as a “lone wolf,” without an organization like that of one of the major terror groups behind him. Thus, he has his own network of people assisting him, who are apparently not known to operatives of terror groups Israel has questioned, or informants Israel works with.

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