Scene of thwarted tractor attack
Scene of thwarted tractor attackFlash 90

The uncle of the Palestinian Authority Arab terrorist, who was shot dead after trying to carry out an attack in an IDF base, claimed on Friday that his nephew got lost and did not intend to carry out a terror attack.

"He got lost, the soldiers did not wait, they should not have shot him right away," the uncle of Younes al-Ubeidi was quoted by Channel 2 News as having said.

The uncle added that despite the death of his older brother Marai, the terrorist who tried to carry out a similar attack in Jerusalem in 2009, "Younes had nothing against Jews."

"He was a humble and optimistic person, who did not have any mental problems except for his anger over the death of his brother,” the uncle said.

The attempted attack occurred at about 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, when al-Ubeidi broke into an IDF base at A-Ram, north of Jerusalem, driving a tractor.

He succeeded in breaking through the base's fence. Soldiers fired on him and killed him.

A senior officer in the IDF’s Judea and Samaria Brigade expressed concern on Thursday over the series of recent terror attacks, saying that they are an alarming sequence of events which show that PA Arabs are very much motivated to carry out attacks.

The IDF has conducted an investigation into the incident and it has found that the soldiers acted calmly and according to procedures. The IDF noted that the behavior of the soldiers prevented a tragedy.

"We immediately realized it was a terrorist, he was determined to kill us," said the soldiers.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)