[An Nahar] The Israeli military on Sunday prepped the family home of a Paleostinian gunman for demolition, a day after he killed an Israeli security guard in an attack.On Saturday a Paleostinian gunman shot and killed 42-year-old security guard Chen Amir in central Tel Aviv. The attacker, identified by police as 27-year-old Kamel Abu Bakr, was shot at the scene and died later in hospital.
Amir's funeral was expected to take place Sunday.
Saturday's shooting came a day after two Israeli settlers were arrested on suspicion of killing a Paleostinian man in the West Bank on Friday night. Paleostinian officials said armed settlers entered the West Bank village of Burqa and shot 19-year-old Qusai Matan.
The army said the Israeli settlers arrived in the area to herd sheep, leading to festivities between Israelis and Paleostinians from the village. Israeli media reported that one of the suspects in the incident, Elisha Yered, was a former aide to an ultranationalist politician in the "Jewish Power" party, one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's key coalition partners.
The shooting is part of an escalation of settler attacks on Paleostinian civilians in recent months, and several Israeli commentators warned Sunday that assailants felt emboldened by fellow ultranationalists in key positions in government.
The Israeli military said troops measured the home of the Paleostinian attacker ahead of its demolition in the village of Rumana, near the restive West Bank city of Jenin.
Israel says home demolitions are meant to deter future attackers but critics say they amount to collective punishment against the families of assailants and only exacerbate tensions with Paleostinians.
In the right-leaning Hebrew-language daily Israel Hayom, pundit Yoav Limor wrote that there are "armed Jewish militias that are operating like terrorist groups in Samaria," referring to the West Bank by its biblical name.
"If the state of Israel doesn't come to its senses and stop them immediately, the damage they will do is far more dangerous than any terror attack of the enemy," he said.