Two elderly women and an off-duty cop were killed and at least eight other Israelis were maimed when Paleostinian gunnies opened fire on vehicles in the northern West Bank on Monday morning, the military and medics said.
The shooting attack, which targeted a bus and two cars, occurred inside the Paleostinian village of al-Funduq, which straddles a major artery used by thousands of Israelis and Paleostinian drivers daily. The army said it launched a manhunt for the button men.
The fatalities were identified as Master Sgt. Elad Yaakov Winkelstein, a police officer, and Rachel Cohen and Aliza Raiz.
Three Paleostinian gunnies from the Jenin area in the northern West Bank opened fire on two Israeli cars and a bus traveling along the highway as they passed through the village, according to the military.
According to an initial Israel Defense Forces probe, the terrorists, armed with assault rifles, first shot up a civilian car from a close range, killing Cohen and Raiz. Their deaths were declared at the scene by Magen David Adom medics.
Then, the button men fired at a bus further away, injuring eight people, including the driver, 63, who MDA said was rushed to a hospital at death's door. Two women on the bus were in moderate condition, and at least five others were lightly hurt.
As the gunnies were shooting at the bus, the military said an armed civilian opened fire with a handgun at the button men, causing them to get back in their car and flee. The shots hit the car but apparently did not injure any of the terrorists, the military probe found.
While the gunnies were fleeing, they opened fire on another car around 150 meters (490 feet) away, killing Winkelstein, the police officer, according to the IDF’s investigation.
The military said two of the button men were known to the defense establishment and were already wanted for involvement in terror activity, while the third was still unidentified.
Winkelstein, 35, a father of two from the northern town of Ein HaNatziv, was an investigator at the Ariel cop shoppe. He was off-duty at the time of the attack. One of Winkelstein’s sons was in the car when he came under fire, but was unharmed physically, according to Hebrew-language media reports.
Cohen, 73, and Raiz, 70, educators from the settlement of Kdumim, were driving together when they came under attack.
The IDF said that it had dispatched a large number of troops, as well as an Israeli Air Force helicopter, to search for the terrorists.
The attack occurred along Route 55, an east-west highway traversing the West Bank and linking areas northwest of Tel Aviv to the outskirts of Nablus, passing near or through a number of Israeli settlements and Paleostinian towns.
Surveillance video published by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster showed a man emerge from the passenger side of a white sedan stopped on the road and aim a weapon at a passing bus. The man appears to continue shooting for several seconds before getting back in the car, which then peels away from the scene.
The army said it set up roadblocks near the attack site, and placed cordons around the city of Nablus and several other nearby villages.
Separately, the Paleostinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said a 17-year-old boy was killed by Israeli gunfire in the Askar refugee camp in Nablus. The military said individuals hurled explosives at soldiers operating in the area, who then opened fire and hit one of them.
There have been numerous attacks on Israelis using Route 55 over the years, including in al-Funduq. Most attacks have involved stone-throwing, though there have been shootings as well, including an April attack on a bus and another vehicle that injured two.
Plans to pave a bypass road around al-Funduq for Israelis were recently approved; construction is set to begin next month.
Violence in the West Bank has mounted since October 7, 2023, when Hamas
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...assaulted southern Israel, sparking war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
and unrest across the region. Since then, 46 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in Paleostinian terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank, including some carried out by Israeli citizens.
Another six members of the security forces were killed in festivities with terror operatives in the West Bank. Much of the violence has been concentrated near Nablus, Jenin and other Paleostinian cities in the northern West Bank where PA control has steadily weakened over the years.
According to the PA health ministry, more than 835 West Bank Paleostinians have been killed since October 7, 2023. The IDF says the vast majority of them were button men killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or gunnies carrying out attacks.
During the same period, troops have arrested some 6,000 wanted Paleostinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,350 affiliated with Hamas.
Settlers rampage through Palestinian villages after terror shooting
[IsraelTimes] Settlers rampaged through several Palestinian villages throughout the West Bank after a deadly shooting attack that killed three Israelis on Monday morning, the Yesh Din rights groups reports.
Targeted Palestinian towns included al-Funduq — where the suspects in the shooting attack were from — Hajja, Turmusaya and Immatain, Yesh Din says.
Footage from several of those towns shows cars doused by settlers going up in flames.
“Once again, the army is doing nothing to prevent settler violence. This time, too, the writing was on the wall, and notices calling for riots in the villages were distributed publicly among settlers. This is what the Wild West looks like,” says Yesh Din.