JERUSALEM: A Palestinian killed two Israelis and wounded four others in an attack in a West Bank colony on Tuesday before he was shot and killed by Israeli security personnel, Israeli paramedics and Palestinian officials said.
The Magen David Adom paramedic service confirmed the two were killed in Ariel. The four wounded were hospitalised in serious condition.
The Israeli military said the Palestinian attacked Israelis at the entrance to the colony’s industrial zone, then proceeded to a nearby gas station and stabbed more people there.
Initial reports by Israeli news outlets said the attacker was trying to flee the scene and drove a car onto the adjacent highway, collided with oncoming traffic, then fled the vehicle.
Amateur video aired on Israeli television appeared to show the suspected attacker running down a highway and collapsing to the ground after he was shot. The Palestinian Health Ministry later confirmed a Palestinian man was killed.
There was no immediate word on his motive for the stabbing and no militant group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid sent condolences to the families of those killed in the attack and said Israel was “fighting terror nonstop and full force.’’
“Our security forces are working around the clock to protect Israeli citizens and harm terror infrastructure everywhere, all the time,’’ he said.
It was the latest in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence in the West Bank and east Jerusalem that has seen at least 23 Israelis and more than 130 Palestinians killed this year, making 2022 the deadliest since 2006.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians seek those territories for their hoped-for independent state.
