Egypt Daily News – Three Israelis were killed and others wounded on Monday in a shooting at a car and a bus near the Kedumim settlement in the northern Israeli-occupied West Bank, the Israeli ambulance service Magen David Adom said.
Monday’s attack comes amid diplomatic efforts to reach an agreement to end the 15-month war in the Gaza Strip and return Israeli hostages, and may constitute another obstacle to concluding this agreement before the inauguration of US President-elect Donald Trump on January 20.
Israeli news websites showed at least two men getting out of a car and apparently opening fire on vehicles near the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq, near Kedumim.
The far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in the Kedumim settlement, called for an urgent cabinet meeting “to discuss a shift in strategy and seek to radically eliminate terrorism.”
Smotrich wrote that the cities of Nablus and Jenin in the West Bank “should be like Jabalia,” referring to the town located in the northern Gaza Strip, which was completely destroyed due to repeated Israeli bombing.
For years, Smotrich has been demanding the extension of Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank, which the Palestinians want to be part of their future state. “No one will escape punishment,” he said on the X platform.
There has been no comment yet from the Palestinian authorities in the West Bank.
Hamas has praised the attack, saying it was “a heroic response to the ongoing crimes and war of genocide committed by the occupation against our people in the Gaza Strip,” but it did not claim responsibility for it.
The West Bank has changed dramatically as a result of the rapid expansion of Jewish settlements since Netanyahu returned to power at the head of an extreme right-wing nationalist coalition two years ago. During that period, escalating settler violence led to the imposition of US sanctions.
Violence is escalating in the West Bank, where hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis have been killed since the attack launched by Hamas militants on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which ignited the ongoing war in Gaza.
Israeli Defense Minister Yisrael Katz said he had instructed the army to “respond forcefully” to Monday’s attack. Israeli Army Radio said that the army imposed a cordon around all the villages in the area to search for the suspects who were believed to have fled to a nearby Palestinian village.
The Israeli ambulance service said that two women in their sixties and a man aged about 40 were declared dead at the scene of the attack, and eight passengers were injured, including the bus driver, who suffered serious injuries.
Hamas spokesman Abu Ubaida said on Telegram, “Once again, the brave heroes of the West Bank prove that they are in the heart of the Al-Aqsa flood battle, and that all bets on breaking them or dissuading them from supporting Gaza by the occupation and its henchmen are already doomed to failure.”
He added, “The enemy must know that as long as it continues its massacres and aggression against Gaza and the West Bank, it will pay a heavy price for that in the blood of its soldiers and rapists, and it will not enjoy security until our people enjoy it.”
Hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers have lived in the West Bank since Israel occupied it in the 1967 war. Most countries and the United Nations consider the settlements illegal, but Israel rejects this, pointing to historical and religious ties to the region.
Palestinian security forces entered Jenin in the northern West Bank last month in a move they say aims to pursue armed groups of “outlaws” who have established a base in the city and the refugee camp adjacent to it.
Palestinian officials said that on Sunday, Israeli forces killed a 37-year-old man in a town south of Jenin after opening fire on his house, and another 17-year-old Palestinian was killed in an Israeli raid on the Askar camp in Nablus.
