Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video message following the murder of Hallel Yaffa Ariel. Photo: Screenshot.

In the wake of the brutal slaughter of 13-year-old Hallel Ariel at the hands of a Palestinian terrorist who entered her bedroom on Thursday and stabbed her to death, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video in which he called on the international community to combat the radical Islamic phenomenon.

“Today, each of us is going to fight back,” Netanyahu said in the clip, which he posted on his official Facebook page. “I ask you to walk into your child’s bedroom before they go to sleep. I ask you to hug them. I ask you to kiss them. Teach them that the values that Hallel’s murderer most detested – freedom, diversity, pluralism – will never die; we’ll always hold them dear. Tell them that we will never let fear, evil and terror triumph; that we will always stand for justice. And this is how we will fight back.”

The world must fight terrorists, their backers and those who incite to violence, Netanyahu said, adding, “We fight back by making sure that our collective moral compass doesn’t waver even a millimeter.”

The prime minister released the video message after the girl’s murder in her Kiryat Arba home. The terrorist was identified by the Palestinian Health Ministry as 19-year-old Muhammed Taraiyreh, from the West Bank town of Bani Naim. He was shot dead by a local rescue team.

“Why would any person do this?” Netanyahu asked rhetorically. “You don’t murder a sleeping child for peace. You don’t slit a little girl’s throat to protest a policy you don’t like. You do this because you’ve been brainwashed. You’ve been brainwashed by a warped ideology that teaches you that this child isn’t human. We will not let barbarism defeat humanity.”

He also said that “defeat[ing] the scourge of radical Islamist terror” will defend and honor Hallel Ariel’s dignity.

Watch his full message below.