Two Israeli settlers killed in shooting near West Bank's Nablus
Two Israeli settlers killed in shooting near West Bank's Nablus
The shooting on Sunday reportedly targeted a car on the main thoroughfare through Huwara, a town near Nablus in the northern West Bank.
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The incident is the latest to occur in the West Bank, where at least 62 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the year [Getty]
Two Israelis were killed in the occupied West Bank on Sunday in what Israeli ministers called a "terror attack".
The incident is the latest in escalating violence in the West Bank, which saw the most Palestinians killed last year since at least 2005, and has continued since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in December with the most right-wing government in the country's history.
A joint statement from Netanyahu and his extreme-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said "two Israeli civilians were killed in a Palestinian terror attack".
The shooting reportedly targeted a car on the main thoroughfare through Huwara, a town near Nablus in the northern West Bank.
A spokesperson for the Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency response service told AFP two wounded were transferred to hospital but subsequently pronounced dead.
Gil Bismuth, an MDA medic, said he had treated the wounded "lying near the car unconscious".
The Israeli military said forces were "pursuing the terrorists and are blocking the area" around the scene. Israeli security forces were deployed along the road and searching vehicles, an AFP photographer saw.
The shooting came after Israeli forces on Wednesday launched their deadliest West Bank raid in nearly 20 years, which left 11 Palestinians dead and more than 80 with gunshot wounds in Nablus.
The raid was described as a "massacre" by rights groups.
Several Arab nations including Qatar and Egypt lambasted Israel over the shooting, whose victims included an elderly man and a teenager.
The Qatari foreign ministry urged the international community to "hold Israel accountable for its horrific crimes in the Palestinian territories".
Sunday's shooting came as Israeli and Palestinian officials held talks in Jordan, with Palestinian officials demanding "an end to the policy of assassinations, incursions, the Judaisation of occupied Jerusalem, settlement expansion, and unilateral Israeli measures".
The West Bank is home to about 2.9 million Palestinians as well as roughly 500,000 Jewish settlers who live in state-approved settlements considered illegal under international law.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since the Six-Day War of 1967.
Since the start of this year, Israeli violence has claimed the lives of 62 Palestinian adults and children.
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