Two Israelis were shot dead in an attack near the settlement of Ely in the northern occupied West Bank on Thursday, according to Israeli emergency services.
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“Rescuers confirmed the deaths of two men, one about 40 years old and one about 20 years old,” announced Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross. According to the Israeli army, a “terrorist who arrived at the Ely gas station opened fire” before being “neutralized.”
The gas station near Ely had already been the scene of a Palestinian attack in June 2023, in which four Israeli civilians died.
An Israeli was killed last week in an attack near the settlement of Maale Adoumim between Jerusalem and the Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank.
Three Palestinians opened fire with automatic weapons on vehicles stuck in traffic near this vast settlement, killing one person and wounding eight others.
Since the war began on October 7 between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank has been the scene of attacks by Palestinians on Israelis and almost daily, often deadly raids by the Israeli army in the area. Occupied since 1967.
Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 400 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry.
The trigger was Israel after Hamas's unprecedented attack on October 7, which killed around 1,160 people in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report based on official data.
The Israeli army's retaliatory offensive in the Gaza Strip has left more than 30,000 dead, the vast majority of them civilians, according to the latest report from the Hamas Health Ministry on Thursday.
Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank hit a record in 2023, Israeli NGO Yesh Din recently said, with the UN also recording 1,225 settler attacks on Palestinians during the year.