President Reuven Rivlin responded on Thursday evening to the stabbing attack at a Rami Levy supermarket at the Sha'ar Binyamin Industrial Zone in Samaria, in which Tuvia Yanai Weissman was murdered and another Jew was wounded.
"A man returns from his daily labors, stops to buy groceries for the Sabbath, and is taken forever by murderous villains. We will fight and we will respond harshly. We will defeat terrorism," said Rivlin.
The president added that “at this hour when the heart is aching, I send a hug of comfort to the bereaved family and prayers for a quick recovery of the wounded."
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) demanded that the families of the terrorists who carried out the attack, two 14-year-old Palestinians, be deported.
"Deporting the families is a means of deterring terrorists and is accepted by the Israel Security Agency,” noted Ariel.
MK Amir Ohana (Likud) called to facilitate the provision of arms licenses to law-abiding citizens, in the wake of the fact that the terrorists were neutralized by armed civilians.
"Another incident that was thwarted in seconds by a citizen carrying a weapon at the scene, unfortunately not before the terrorists had time to start their murderous journey which ended in the death of an Israeli,” Ohana said, adding that “this incident joins many other attacks in recent months that were thwarted by armed civilians.”
“How many more lives will be lost in the name of the intimidation that we are all predators who are just waiting for a given moment to possess a gun? After all, only today a young woman’s life was cut short in Tel Aviv. Her killer did not have a gun. He stabbed her with a knife. The order of the day - allow law-abiding citizens to defend themselves,” added Ohana.