By Stan Goodenough
Dec 28, 2007
Two young Jewish men were shot and killed by Palestinian Arabs while hiking near the Judean town of Hebron Friday afternoon.
A woman hiking with David Reuben and Ahikam Amichai was lightly wounded and hid from the terrorists who reportedly fired from a jeep they were travelling in.
According to Ha'aretz, Reuben and Amichai were armed and returned fire, killing one of the Arabs and wounding another before succumbing to their wounds.
Hiding from the killers, the woman called for help, but security forces took nearly an hour to reach her because she had difficulty in communicating her location.
Helicopters were called to hunt the Hebron hills for the attackers, but the IDF has yet to track them down.
Arabs claiming to speak on behalf of the Palestine Islamic Jihad said that their organization had carried out the murders.
One day before the shootings, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had sat down with PLO/PA chief Mahmoud Abbas to discuss ways to push forward with the surrender of Jewish land to the "Palestinians."
Abbas' demands include Israel's removal of roadblocks that inhibit terrorist movement in Samaria and Judea, and the release of "Palestinian" terrorists from Israeli jails.
The PLO/PA Authority is supposed to be in control of security in the "Palestinian" areas of what the world calls "the West Bank."
On Friday morning, just hours before the attack, The Jerusalem Post reported that 2007 has seen "the fewest number of Israelis killed in terrorist attacks in decades."