Chairman Gershon Mesika of the Samaria Regional Council announced on Monday that a monument will be erected at Tapuach Junction in memory of slain Israeli non-commissioned army officer Ihab Khatib, who was murdered at the junction last week by an officer in the Palestinian Authority police. The announcement came during a condolence visit paid by a delegation from Samaria, accompanied by Deputy Minister for Galilee and Negev Development, Ayoub Kara. Mesika told those gathered at the community center in the Galilee village of Maghar that security concessions were to blame for Khatib's death, which he said, could have been avoided.

Khatib's father told the delegation that his son had been involved in a gunfight with terrorists in Hevron in 2004, returning fire and evacuating three wounded soldiers to Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva.