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A Palestinian attacker opened fire at a gas station near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank on Tuesday, killing at least four people and wounding several others before being shot, authorities said, as violence continued to roil the occupied territory.
Israeli security forces said they also shot and killed another Palestinian assailant who later fled the shooting scene. The Hamas militant group claimed both assailants as members.
The attack underscored the fragility of the situation in the West Bank, where on Monday an Israeli military raid into the northern Jenin refugee camp ignited some of the fiercest Israeli-Palestinian fighting in years, killing six Palestinians and wounding scores more. Palestinian militants targeted Israeli military vehicles with powerful roadside bombs and Israeli forces deployed helicopter gunships to evacuate stranded troops.
The surge in violence has killed 128 Palestinians and 24 people on the Israeli side so far this year, according to a tally by The Associated Press, prompting many on either side of the conflict to fear a possible greater conflagration.
The Israeli military said it was sending reinforcements to the West Bank and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to « settle the score with the murderers. »
« I want to tell all those who seek to harm us — all options are open, » he said in a video statement. « We will continue to fight terror with all our might and we will win. »
Later on Tuesday, a few carloads of Israeli settlers, outraged by the fatal shootings, drove to the northern Palestinian towns of Hawara and Burin and hurled stones at Palestinian houses and smashed cars.
Hawara was the scene of a deadly rampage earlier this year in which Israeli settlers set dozens of homes and cars on fire and left one Palestinian dead after a Palestinian militant attack killed two Israeli brothers.
A gang of settlers on Tuesday set fire to a Palestinian’s car, said Nablus official Ghassan Daghlas, and tried to burn two Palestinian homes. Some settlers opened fire toward Palestinians who ventured out of their homes to throw stones at them, he added. He said there were no immediate reports of injuries.
