American yeshiva student killed in West Bank identified as Mass. 18-year-old

Schwartz had graduated from the Maimonides School in Brookline earlier this year, according to a statement from the school. “Ezra was spending his gap year studying in Israel”.

Schwartz is from Sharon, Massachusetts, and his family was notified of the news following the horrific attack, according to a statement now cleared for release. The Israeli military said Schwartz, of Sharon, and two others, were killed by a Palestinian motorist who intentionally rammed his vehicle into a group of pedestrians.

Bruce Mendelsohn, executive director of the New England region of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, said if Schwartz was killed delivering food to Israeli soldiers, “that makes it even sadder”. However the attack in Israel’s economic hub of Tel Aviv returned the violence to the Israeli heartland, shattering a lull in that had set in outside of the West Bank & stoking Israeli fears in that a full-fledged Palestinian rebellion might erupt. Attacks inside Israel have grown rare in recent weeks even as violence continued to roil the West Bank. The volunteers also visited a memorial for three Israeli teenagers who were killed last summer. Still, authorities have failed to halt the seemingly spontaneous attacks. A Palestinian and one Israeli were also killed; the gunman was arrested.

“[He was] looking forward to going with friends, learning, studying and doing acts of kindness”, she said.

Police said the stabbing took place in a shop on the second floor of an expansive office building where a group of Israelis had gathered to hold afternoon prayers. The Telegraph reports Israeli PM Benjamin Nethanyahu saying it’s “blindness and hypocrisy” that stops people from condemning attacks as vehemently as the Paris Terrorist Attacks were denounced.

The alleged shooter has been identified as 24-year-old Mohammed Abdel Basset al-Kharoub, who is from a village in the West Bank, the Times of Israel reported.

Israeli borderguards stand guard at the site of the attack.