Two Israelis were critically wounded in a Palestinian shooting attack that lasted over 20 minutes next to a West Bank checkpoint on Route 35 just outside of Hebron early Friday morning. It occurred as the Israeli army was on alert for an increase in violence ahead of Tuesday’s Israeli elections.
Three others were lightly wounded, according to Magen David Adom, Israel’s emergency medical service. The Israel Defense Forces said its troops killed the two Palestinian assailants.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir called the incident a “serious attack” and said the actions of Israeli troops at the scene had prevented an even more serious attack.
Footage of the incident published on social media and in Israeli media shows the assailants leaving their car and engaging an IDF force stationed at a checkpoint on a road used by Palestinian vehicles.
According to the military, the assailants were carrying an assault rifle, a handgun and a large quantity of ammunition.
The exchange of fire lasted more than 20 minutes, until an IDF force stormed the scene and killed both assailants, according to the military briefing. A large quantity of ammunition was found in the assailants’ vehicle, and the IDF assessed that they had been on their way to carry out a major attack against Israeli civilians.
One of the first responders to the scene, MDA emergency medical technician Tzuriel Edri, told reporters, “We arrived at a difficult scene while gunfire was still ongoing in the area.
“We entered with MDA’s bulletproof ambulance and immediately began helping evacuate the wounded. We loaded a young man in his 20s, who was unconscious with gunshot wounds and in very serious condition, into the ambulance and provided him with medical treatment.
“We evacuated additional wounded people to MDA ambulances that had arrived at the scene and immediately began transporting them to hospitals. Another patient in very serious condition was treated by IDF medical personnel in a mobile intensive care unit.”
Israeli officials signaled that they were preparing a significant response to the attack.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security assessment with senior defense officials and announced he had instructed the IDF to immediately impose a siege on Hebron and “prepare for a full shutdown of all of Judea and Samaria starting today.”
Netanyahu added that Israel would “pursue Hamas terrorists and those who send them, everywhere and at all times. You have nowhere to hide.”
The IDF briefed reporters that Hebron, a Palestinian city of over 200,000, was under a full siege, with no one permitted to enter or leave the city. Elsewhere in the West Bank, IDF forces were conducting extensive checks of Palestinian vehicles arriving at major roads..
Yisrael Ganz, head of the Binyamin Regional Council and chairman of the settlers’ political organizing body, the Yesha Council, called it “a very difficult morning.” He praised the IDF soldiers who had prevented what he described as a planned “massacre” by the assailants.
“This is not a lone terrorist and not an isolated attack, but a broadening and intensifying threat that could end in a heavy disaster,” Ganz said.
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