Four people were killed and four others wounded in a shootout near an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, Israeli army and medics said.
The Israeli army said the attackers opened fire near a gas station near the settlement of Eli (north) and “neutralized” one of them before going in search of other “suspects”.
“Barricades have been put in place in the area,” she added in a statement.
When asked by AFP, the Israeli army did not say whether the “neutralized” attacker had been killed.
Magen David Adom, Israel’s Red Cross equivalent, said four people were pronounced dead at the scene while four others were injured, one of them in serious condition. They were not immediately identified.
AFP
According to a press release from Mr Gallant’s office, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant will assess the situation at 6 p.m. local time during a meeting with chief of staff Herzi Halevi, director of the internal security agency Shin Bet and other security officials.
This incident came a day after violent clashes in Jenin in the northern West Bank.
On Monday, six Palestinians, including one militant, were killed in an Israeli operation in the Jenin Palestinian refugee camp, which led to a violent battle.
Rockets were fired from an Israeli helicopter, something that hadn’t happened in years.
More than 90 Palestinians and eight members of the Israeli security forces were injured there, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources.
The shooting near a settlement on Tuesday was “in response to the crimes committed by the occupation (Israel, ed.) yesterday in the Jenin refugee camp,” said Hazem Qassem, spokesman for the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip .
AFP
Tariq Selmi, spokesman for Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian armed group, called it “a heroic operation by a commando within the legitimate right of self-defense.”
Israeli incursions into the northern West Bank, a stronghold of armed Palestinian groups, often end in deadly clashes.
At least 166 Palestinians, 21 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian have been killed in violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the beginning of the year, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
These statistics include combatants and civilians, including minors, on the Palestinian side and mostly civilians, including minors, on the Israeli side, as well as three members of the Arab minority.
Nearly three million Palestinians live in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. About 490,000 Israelis also live there in settlements that the United Nations has declared illegal under international law.