The Israeli security guard killed in Friday's deadly terror shooting outside the West Bank settlement of Ariel was named as 23-year-old Vyacheslav (Daniel) Golev from Beit Shemesh.
Golev was stationed at a security booth at the entrance to the settlement when two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at him. He shielded another security guard who was stationed with him from the bullets. She was identified as his fiancée Victoria Fligelman from the southern city of Ashkelon. She was not harmed in the attack.
Golev was a former student at Ariel University. He grew up in an ultra-Orthodox family and is survived by his parents and seven siblings.
He recently moved to Ariel with his fiancée, with whom he got engaged just weeks prior. The couple shared a photo together on social media just hours before the attack.
The Ariel municipality said that its social services department contacted Fligelman's parents, who picked her up at their home in Ashkelon, after the attack.
Her father told Ynet that she was crying incessantly since the attack.
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Golev and Fligelman's last photo together taken just hours before the attack
(Photo: Taken from Facebook)
"We were at Barzilai Hospital and they tried to bring her psychologists but it did not help. She is in great trauma," he said.
Ashkelon Mayor Tomer Glam said that the city's welfare and social services department will stand by Fligelman and her family.
IDF troops and counterterrorism officers on Saturday arrested two suspects in the attack. They were detained in the nearby Palestinian town of Qarawat Bani Hassan. The two did not put up any resistance and both their weapons were also seized in the raid.
They were taken in by the Shin Bet security agency for further questioning.
A preliminary investigation revealed that the suspects, identified as 19-year-old Yahyah Maree and 20-year-old Yousef A'ssi, were not sent by any terrorist groups, but one of them had ties to Hamas.
Both men are barred from entering Israel, and one of them has previously served time in an Israeli prison. They were arrested at their homes, along with several relatives suspected of aiding them in carrying out the attack.
They arrived at the entrance to the settlement in a blue Suzuki with Israeli license plates, which apparently belonged in the past to a car that was taken off the road. The terrorists' vehicle was later found after being set on fire and abandoned.
The two pulled up at the settlement's gate armed with Carl Gustav submachine guns and opened fire at the guard shack. They then got out of the vehicle and shot Golev from point-blank.
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Yahyah Maree, center, and Yousef A'ssi with the weapons seized by security forces
(Photo: Israel Police)
Golev shielded Fligelman with his body and took three of at least ten bullets fired, killing him on the spot.
One of the gunmen then ran back to the car, made a U-turn and picked up the other assailant, who was waiting for him on the other side of the road.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz extended his condolences to Golev's family and praised security forces for their swift response to the attack.
"The State of Israel has always defeated terror and we will do whatever it takes, on all fronts, any time and by any means to defeat it again in these times," the former military chief said.
This latest attack in Ariel joins a spate of Islamist terrorist attacks in Israeli cities since late March which claimed the lives of 15 Israelis.