JERUSALEM — Palestinian attackers killed an Israeli man and wounded three other people in a car-ramming and stabbing in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday before soldiers shot dead the assailants, Israeli leaders and the military said.
The military said explosive materials were found in the vehicle used by the attackers, which were neutralized by bomb disposal specialists.
A spokesperson for the Israeli ambulance service said a 71-year-old Israeli man was stabbed to death. A woman, a boy and another man were wounded.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which took place between Bethlehem and Hebron at a traffic junction at the entrance to a cluster of Israeli settlements known as the Etzion bloc.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a Palestinian terrorist attack, and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the Palestinian Authority’s failure to condemn it showed why a Palestinian state should never be established.
West Bank tensions escalate
The attack was the latest incident in the West Bank, where Palestinians have faced tightened military restrictions and a surge in violent attacks by Jewish settlers since the start of the Gaza war two years ago.
In Gaza, a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas has held since October 10.
Israel has been under mounting international pressure to curb the attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank. Netanyahu will convene an urgent meeting of ministers and security officials on Thursday to discuss steps to bring Israelis who attack Palestinians to justice, senior officials said.
On Monday, Israelis torched homes and vehicles in Jab’a, a Palestinian village near Bethlehem, after an earlier attack on property and civilians in the village of Sa’ir, the WAFA news agency said, quoting officials.
Defense chief promises unprecedented steps
Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Monday the government will take unprecedented steps in coming weeks allocating resources and funding to curbing Israeli violence — a move he expected would have a significant impact.
“The Jewish rioters in Judea and Samaria harm the State of Israel, disgrace Judaism, and cause damage to the settlement project,” Saar posted on X on Monday, using the biblical names for the West Bank.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said this month that settlers staged at least 264 attacks on Palestinians in October — the highest monthly tally since the U.N. began tracking such incidents in 2006.
Home to 2.7 million Palestinians, the West Bank has long been at the heart of plans for a future Palestinian state existing alongside Israel. Successive Israeli governments have encouraged Israeli settlements to expand rapidly in the West Bank, fragmenting the land.
