Two Palestinian attackers opened fire at a restaurant and gas station near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank on Tuesday, killing four Israelis and wounding several others before being shot dead as violence wracked the occupied territory a day after a deadly Israeli military raid.
Israeli settlers attempted to carry out retaliatory assaults across the northern West Bank, sparking concerns of a repeat of a February rampage that destroyed dozens of Palestinian homes and vehicles and resulted in the death of a Palestinian man.
Palestinians Fatally Shoot 4 Israelis Before Being Killed
Ghassan Daghlas, an official from Nablus, reported that hundreds of Israeli settlers drove to the northern Palestinian communities of Hawara, Beit Furik, Burin, and adjacent villages, where they burned dozens of vehicles, threw stones, and attempted to set residences on fire.
There were no reports of significant injuries immediately. Tuesday's violence highlighted the precarious nature of the situation in the West Bank, where on Monday an Israeli military raid into the northern Jenin refugee camp sparked the fiercest Israeli-Palestinian fighting in years, resulting in the deaths of six Palestinians and the wounding of dozens more.
Palestinian militants detonated powerful roadside explosives against Israeli military vehicles, and Israeli forces deployed helicopter gunships to evacuate stranded soldiers.
In the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus, two Palestinian adolescents were killed when homemade explosives they were handling unintentionally detonated, according to a statement from the local branch of Islamic Jihad.
The militant group identified the two Palestinians slain as Mohammed Hashah, 17, and Alaa Hafnawi, 18. Palestinian media reported that a third of those injured by the explosion were Palestinians.
The Associated Press reports that a surge in violence in recent months has resulted in the deaths of at least 130 Palestinians and 24 Israelis so far this year, prompting many on both sides of the conflict to fear a potential escalation.
Israeli-Palestinian Violence
Video footage revealed that the shootings occurred at a restaurant and petrol station adjacent to the settlement of Eli, approximately 40 kilometers north of Jerusalem.
According to security officials, an Israeli civilian shot and killed one of the attackers, a Palestinian from a nearby Arab village, and a second attacker was later shot in his escape vehicle following a manhunt.
Hamas, the Islamist militia and political movement that dominates the Gaza Strip, stated that the assailants were members of its armed branch and attributed the violence to Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, police raids on a mosque in Jerusalem, and military incursions in the northern West Bank.
According to NY Times, Hamas has avoided direct acknowledgement of any involvement in West Bank violence in recent years. Its decision to claim responsibility this time has increased the likelihood of Israeli retaliation against Hamas leaders and infrastructure in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Israeli forces undertake daily raids within Palestinian communities in the West Bank, in what experts describe as the most sustained military operation there since the second Palestinian uprising, or intifada, in the early 2000s.
One such raid on Monday prompted an unusually protracted gun conflict between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian militants in another region of the northern West Bank, resulting in the deaths of six Palestinians and the uncommon destruction of Israeli military vehicles.
This increased the number of Palestinian deaths this year to over 160. The majority of them were slain in Israeli military raids in the West Bank, one of the highest mortality rates in the past fifteen years.
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