Wanted Hamas terrorist Ali Ismail Ahmed Sweiti was killed on Monday morning in an exchange of fire with security forces in the village of Beit Awa, southwest of Hebron.
Earlier that morning, IDF troops and a special police force had surrounded Sweiti's house and called out to him using a megaphone in an attempt to coerce him to come out of the building and turn himself in.
Sweiti, however, barricaded himself inside the house and begant to shoot at the troops outside. The troops shot at the outer wall of the house and used various means to destroy parts of it.
Sweiti, who killed 20-year-old Border Policeman Yaniv Mashiach and wounded two others in an ambush in the southern Hebron Hills on Remembrance Day in 2004, had been on Israel's wanted list for six years.
The 42-year-old terrorist, a resident of Beit Awa, was a member of an armed Hamas cell. He was said by the IDF to have taken part in five terrorist attacks between the years 1999 and 2004.
Sweiti joined Hamas in 2002 at the behest of another Beit Awa local, Jihad Mohammed Ismail Sweiti, himself a wanted terrorist and perpetrator of attacks in which Israelis were killed. Together, the two allegedly carried out several shooting attacks against Israeli vehicles in the West Bank between 2000 and 2003.
Although Jihad Sweiti was killed by the IDF in 2004, Ali Sweiti continued to be involved in terrorist activity and managed to flee during an attempt to arrest him in 2007.
Sweiti was found dead inside the house at the end of the exchange. He was killed in a joint operation by the IDF, Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and Border Police.
Following the incident, security forces demolished the house using bulldozers.
No casualties were reported among the troops.
Mashiach's family was notified of the terrorist's demise.