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Update: Israeli couple killed in West Bank shooting attack

Xinhua, October 2, 2015 Adjust font size:

An Israeli couple was killed in a drive-by shooting attack on their vehicle in the West Bank on Thursday, possibly triggering another security escalation between Israel and the Palestinians in the area.

The two dead, both in their 30's, were riding in their car with their four children in a West Bank road east of Nablus, near the Jewish settlement of Itamar and the Palestinian village of Beit Furik, when gunshots were fired at them from a passing vehicle, the military said in a statement.

The couple were critically injured at first, suffering gunshot wounds to their upper torso, and medical teams at the scene had to pronounce them dead after failing to resuscitate them, the Israeli Red Cross Emergency Services spokesperson Zaki Heller told Xinhua.

The four children, aged four months to nine years, were lightly wounded in the attack and medical teams evacuated them to the hospital.

The perpetrators of the attack have fled the scene and the Israeli military is conducting searches for the culprits, closing the road for traffic, Israeli army said in a statement.

"The Israel Defense Forces is operating to pursue and locate those responsible of this ruthless, heinous barbaric attack,"Peter Lerner, the IDF spokesperson to the Foreign Media, was quoted in the statement as saying.

Israeli media outlets reported that local clashes ensued between Palestinians and Jewish settlers at the Yizhar junction in the West Bank, south of Nablus, late on Thursday, shortly after news of the attack broke out.

The Walla! news website reported that the settlers and the Palestinians threw stones at each other, not far from where the deadly attack took place, with Israeli military and paramilitary forces making their way to the scene as of press time.

There has been a mounting surge of violence in the West Bank between Israelis and Palestinians in recent months, along with the ongoing clashes in east Jerusalem surrounding the holy site of Temple Mount.

Shooting and firebombing attacks and rock throwing at Israeli vehicles have almost become a routine in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as of late.

Israel blamed the Palestinian Authority for its "incitement" for violence in recent months in Jerusalem as well as in the West Bank. The Palestinians accused Israel of keeping the conflict's status quo intact while expanding Jewish settlements on Palestinian territories.

Israel occupied the West Bank and east Jerusalem territories, home to more than 2.5 million Palestinians, in the 1967 Mideast War. The Palestinian seek for their own state on the occupied lands, with east Jerusalem as its capital.

Violent clashes and attacks between Israeli security services, Palestinians and Jewish extremists increased dramatically in the past year, since the abrupt end of the last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians in April 2014. Endit