Israeli police say six members of the security forces were injured in a shooting at a checkpoint near Bethlehem.
Three Palestinians were killed after allegedly carrying out a shooting attack at an Israeli checkpoint near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, amid growing violence across the territory.
At least six members of the Israeli security forces were injured in this attack, including one seriously, Israeli police announced Thursday.
Following the incident, the Israeli army sealed off all entrances to Bethlehem governorate in the southern occupied West Bank, preventing people from entering and leaving the area.
Troops were deployed along roads leading to several neighboring villages and towns.
Israeli police chief Yaakov Shabtai said the suspected gunmen had planned a much larger attack.
At least two of the suspected attackers belonged to the Hamas armed group, according to Israel’s internal security service, the Shin Bet.
There was no immediate comment from Hamas.
Shabtai told reporters that the three men arrived in a vehicle from Bethlehem and opened fire when Israeli forces began questioning them. They were killed when Israeli forces returned fire, he said.
After the shooting, police said they found two automatic rifles, two handguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, ten fully loaded magazines and two axes on the suspects and in their vehicle.
Footage posted on social media, shot from inside a bus, showed a man in uniform running and falling as gunshots rang out at the checkpoint in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
“They (Israeli authorities) say there is a fourth Palestinian who they believe is involved in the shooting,” Tel Aviv Tribune’s Nida Ibrahim said from Ramallah.
“In the hours that followed, we saw Israeli forces attack Hebron because they believed the perpetrators were from there,” she said. “They arrested the families of the three Palestinians.”
Earlier on Thursday, Israeli forces carried out raids across the West Bank, making several arrests.
Witnesses told the Palestinian Wafa news agency that two young men were arrested in the city of Jericho. Two other men were arrested following another raid in the village of al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya, located south of Nablus.
Tensions in the West Bank have increased since Hamas carried out a surprise attack in southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel responded with an air and ground attack on Gaza that has so far killed more than 11,600 people, including at least 4,700 children, according to Palestinian health authorities. It also left much of the besieged enclave in ruins.
At least 197 Palestinians, including 48 children, have been killed in the occupied West Bank since October 7. Eight Palestinians have been killed in attacks by Israeli settlers, according to the UN, and more than 1,100 people have been displaced from their homes.
The UN human rights chief expressed concern about “the intensification of violence and serious discrimination against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”
“This creates a potentially explosive situation,” Volker Turk told a press briefing to UN member states in Geneva.
“I am sounding the loudest possible alarm regarding the occupied West Bank. »
