A Palestinian terrorist who shot an Israeli rabbi to death was killed after engaging in a firefight with Israeli security forces in the West Bank overnight Tuesday.

Mohammed Jabarah al-Fakih, who killed Rabbi Miki Mark and injured his wife and two of his children on July 1, refused calls to surrender after the house he was hiding in the town of Surif near Hebron was surrounded by members of the Israeli Defense Forces’ elite Duvdevan unit and Israel Police’s counter-terrorism force Yamam, Ynet reported. After he opened fire on the troops, they launched an anti-tank missile and several projectiles at the structure and demolished it with a bulldozer. Fakih’s body, as well as weapons including a Kalashnikov rifle and a homemade grenade, were uncovered by security personnel who  searched the destroyed hideout in the pre-dawn hours.

Fakih was imprisoned by Israel in the past for planning terror attacks while a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but he switched his affiliation to Hamas while incarcerated.

Israel had previously arrested three members of the cell that were involved in orchestrating the attack on the Mark family, including Fakih’s brother Sahib, who helped Mohammed acquire and conceal weapons. Muaz Fakih, a cousin to the two brothers, confessed to hiding Mohammad after the attack. Mohammad Majid Amaira, a member of the Palestinian security forces, admitted to driving the car used in the drive-by shooting attack and identified Fakih as the trigger man. Amaira was detained three days after the murder, and Israeli authorities managed to recover the weapon and vehicle used in the attack after his interrogation.

Ynet described Israel’s efforts to find the killers following Mark’s murder as the “largest operation in the territory in two years.”

[Photo: Wisam Hashlamoun / FLASH90 ]