Palestinian militants killed three Israeli police officers on Sunday by opening fire on a vehicle in the occupied West Bank. Israel had been conducting large-scale raids in the area recently. The attack happened on a road in the southern West Bank. The raids focused mainly on urban refugee camps in the northern part of the territory, where Israeli forces have been engaged in frequent fire exchanges with militants since the war in Gaza started.
The police confirmed that all three killed were officers and mentioned that the assailants managed to escape. One of the officers who died was Roni Shakuri, a 61-year-old from the town of Sderot near the Gaza border. His daughter, Mor, who was also a police officer, was killed in a battle with Hamas militants during an attack on the Sderot police station on October 7.
A little-known militant group named 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 attacks.
Later in the day, Israeli forces surrounded a home in the city of Hebron where the suspected attacker was believed to be hiding. They entered the structure and found the gunman’s body along with an M-16 automatic rifle. The army confirmed that the dead man was the attacker from the morning incident and disclosed that he had previously served in the Palestinian Authority’s security forces.
The West Bank has seen a rise in violence since the war began in Gaza on October 7. Palestinians have faced increased casualties, especially during Israeli military raids. Additionally, settler violence against Palestinians and attacks on Israelis have also increased in the past ten months. Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek these territories for their future state, but peace talks have been stalled for over 15 years. Israel has constructed more than 100 settlements in the West Bank, which are considered illegal by most of the international community. Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military rule, with limited autonomy exercised by the Palestinian Authority in certain areas.
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