Palestinian militants kill 3 Israeli police in the West Bank
Global News
Palestinian militants killed three Israeli police officers on Sunday when they opened fire on a vehicle in the occupied West Bank, where Israel has carried out large-scale raids.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Palestinian militants killed three Israeli police officers on Sunday when they opened fire on a vehicle in the occupied West Bank, where Israel has carried out large-scale raids in recent days.
The attack took place along a road in the southern West Bank. The raids have mainly been focused on urban refugee camps in the northern part of the territory, where Israeli forces have traded fire with militants on a near-daily basis since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
The police confirmed that all three killed were officers and said the assailants slipped away.
One of the officers killed was Roni Shakuri, 61, from the southern town of Sderot near the Gaza border, police said. His daughter, Mor, who was also a police officer, was killed in a battle with Hamas militants when they tried to take over the Sderot police station during the Oct. 7 attack.
A little-known militant group calling itself the Khalil al-Rahman Brigade claimed responsibility for the shooting on Sunday. Hamas praised the attack as a “natural response” to the war in Gaza and called for more.
Later on Sunday, Israeli forces encircled a home in the nearby city of Hebron where the army said the suspected attacker was believed to be hiding. At least six soldiers moved in on the structure, repeatedly opening fire and tossing a grenade inside. Soldiers later removed the body of a man from inside on a stretcher, at one point turning toward Palestinian journalists and firing several rounds toward them.
The army later said the dead man was the gunman from the morning attack, and that an M-16 automatic rifle was found with him. It said the man had formerly served in the Palestinian Authority’s security forces.
The West Bank has seen a surge in violence since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack out of Gaza ignited the war there.
