The soldier, Liat Gabai, was on her way back home from the military base in which she served to attend a memorial service for her grandmother.

[citation needed] The attacker, an unemployed Palestinian, 25-year-old Wahib Abu Rub from Qabatiya, was a member of the Islamist militant organization Hamas.

On 18 October 2011, Abu Rub was released after having served 17 years of his sentence as part of the Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas.

A special judicial committee ruled that Abu Rub had breached the conditions of his release and that he should serve his full sentence for Gabai's murder.

[10] Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin condemned the attack but said that violence would not stop the Middle East peace talks.