Three Israelis were killed and eight wounded in the northern West Bank after Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a key highway that runs through the area.
The attack is the latest in a year that has seen heightened violence in the West Bank alongside Israel’s wars with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Monday’s attack, the gunmen fired on two Israeli cars and a bus that were passing through the Palestinian town of Al-Funduq on Highway 55, which runs from Israel into the West Bank through Palestinian and Israeli areas.
The attack ended when an Israeli civilian fired on the shooters. According to Israeli reports, the gunmen killed two women in their 60s as well as Elad Winkelstein, 35, a police officer who was driving with his son. Winkelstein, an investigator in the Israeli settlement of Ariel’s police station, lives in northern Israel and was reportedly previously the security coordinator of the West Bank settlement of Kedumim. The attack also wounded the driver of the bus that was targeted.
The attack comes during more than a year of fighting in the West Bank. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and thousands arrested, mostly in Israeli counter-terror operations, and dozens of Israelis have been killed in attacks the West Bank and Israel, since the start of Israel’s multi-front war with Hamas’ invasion on Oct. 7, 2023. Last week, three Palestinians were killed in clashes between Palestinian Authority forces and terror groups in the northern West Bank city of Jenin.
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