Assailants launched several shooting attacks close to the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday, killing at least one person and wounding five others, according to Israel’s rescue services.
Israel’s police said they had killed one attacker. Large cohorts of Israeli soldiers carried out searches in the area, on the ground and by air, for additional assailants. The number of places where people were shot initially raised concerns that there could be multiple, coordinated attackers.
Rescue services Magen David Adom said it received the first reports of a shooting at a gas station near the town of Kokhav Yair, located on the Israeli side of the boundary with the West Bank, at around 10:30 a.m. Several other shooting reports were received soon afterward, in the towns of Tsur Natan, Tsur Yitzhak, and close to the Israeli settlement of Sal'it, located inside the West Bank.
Police identified the attacker as a Palestinian citizen of Israel from the nearby Arab town of Taybeh.
Residents in the area were instructed to stay at home and children were kept in lockdown at school, according to the regional council head.
“Since Oct. 7, the scenario we were expecting was terrorist crossing into our towns from over the boundary, I don't think that anyone imagined that we would discover the attackers were Israeli citizens,” Oshrit Gani Gonen, the regional council head for the area that includes the towns where the shootings took place, told Israeli media.
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This story has been corrected to include the right location where the Israeli man was killed. That shooting took place on the Israeli side of the boundary with the Israel-occupied West Bank, not inside the West Bank
