Two Israelis were wounded, one seriously, on Wednesday night in a shooting attack in the West Bank, one day after a similar attack left four Israeli civilians dead.
The attack on Wednesday occurred at Rimonim Junction, near the Israeli settlement of Kochav Hashachar and east of the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Around 11 p.m., there were reports of a shooting in the Rimonim Junction area, and a car was found overturned after police and emergency crews conducted sweeps of the area.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said Palestinian gunmen ambushed the Israeli car, which was riddled with bullets, he said.
Preliminary reports said the attack was a drive-by shooting, executed in a similar fashion to Tuesday’s attack. IDF troops are continuing to scour the area for the assailants.
Hamas claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s shooting and vowed more attacks would come.
The victims are a couple, both in their 30s. The man is listed in serious condition, while the woman was lightly wounded in the attack.
An Israeli woman was killed near the same junction in 2002 when a terrorist shot at her car as she drove on a nearby road.
The attack on Wednesday was the second shooting in as many days against Israelis in the West Bank, and comes on the eve of the start of direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington on Thursday.
U.S. President Obama, meanwhile, earlier Wednesday described the fatal shooting one day earlier as a senseless slaughter that will not stop the U.S. from seeking peace in the Middle East.
“There are going to be extremists and rejectionists who, rather than seeking peace, are going to be seeking destruction, and the tragedy that we saw yesterday, where people were gunned down on the street by terrorists who are purposely trying to undermine these talks, is an example of what we’re up against,” Obama said.
Netanyahu applauded Obama’s condemnation of Tuesday’s killing, and said such attacks are carried out by people “who do not respect human life and who trample human rights into the dust and butcher everything they oppose.” [Netanyahu respects human life??? If Jewish, maybe, but not if Palestinian!]
Israeli settlers in the West Bank also on Wednesday said they would break a government freeze on construction in their communities to protest the Palestinian shooting attack on the eve of new peace talks.
