Two Palestinian gunmen shot dead after firing on Israeli base
JENIN, WEST BANK: Three Palestinian gunmen shot at an Israeli border police base in the occupied West Bank on Friday, drawing Israeli fire that killed two of the Palestinians and critically wounded the third, border police said.
There were no reports of Israeli injuries in the incident at the Salem base, near the West Bankisrael border by the northern Palestinian city of Jenin.
Border police said that the three Palestinians “fired at the base’s gate, (and) border police officers and an (Israeli military) soldier responded by firing and neutralising” them. Three guns, three knives and bullets were seized at the scene, the statement said.
There has been a recent increase in violence and tension in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war and that Palestinians seek for a state.
On Wednesday, Israeli troops killed a Palestinian teenager during clashes near the Palestinian city of Nablus and an Israeli teen who had been shot earlier in the week by an alleged Palestinian gunman died of his injuries.
In East Jerusalem, there is mounting tension ahead of Jerusalem Day on Monday, Israel’s annual commemoration of its capture of East Jerusalem, which falls this year during the holy month of Ramadan.