A shooting in the Israeli-occupied West Bank wounded five people four days before Israel's general election, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel his party's campaign events and order a lockdown across the territory for the duration of the vote.
Two Palestinian men opened fire at the Gush Etzion-area junction near Hebron in the West Bank on the 23rd, according to Israeli media including The Times of Israel.
The Israeli military said it had thwarted a terrorist attack targeting Israeli civilians, adding that troops were deployed immediately and shot dead the two suspects at the scene. Military authorities said the gunmen were carrying an M16 rifle and a handgun. The suspects who were killed were Palestinian residents related to each other, according to reports.
Closed-circuit television footage released by authorities appears to show the two men parking their car on a road next to a gas station, waiting, then firing toward a temporary checkpoint. Five people were wounded in the shooting, and two of them are in critical condition, including a man in his 20s who was shot in the lower body.
The shooting just ahead of the election put authorities on emergency footing. Netanyahu said he had held a situation assessment meeting with security chiefs and ordered the immediate sealing of Hebron and preparations for a full closure of the entire West Bank. Under that order, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will be closed for two days on the 26th and 27th, the day before the election and election day itself.
The election carries added weight because it will determine whether Netanyahu, who ordered airstrikes on Iran in February, wins another term. It is also the first election in three years since the Hamas surprise attack on Israel that triggered the war in Gaza. Netanyahu said the military was conducting intensive operations to stop terrorism and was carrying out a wide-ranging arrest campaign, and he instructed his Likud party to cancel political events in the final stretch of the campaign.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a leading far-right figure in Netanyahu's coalition who oversees policing, called at the scene of the attack for the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority. Whether the Palestinian Authority was involved has not been confirmed. With bloodshed erupting just before the vote, The Associated Press reported that Arab parties running in the Israeli election had asked the Supreme Court to bar election observers from carrying firearms inside polling stations.