WEST BANK (Dispatches) – A young Zionist settler has been killed and three others were injured in a retaliatory shooting operation on a bus in the southern part of the West Bank, as tensions have flared up in the occupied territory since the beginning of the occupying regime’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
The occupying regime’s military said the gunman opened fire at the bus in the al-Khader Junction area as it traveled from the illegal settlement of Beitar Illit to Al-Quds.
Paramedics said a woman and two men were wounded in the shooting. The attacker fled the scene but later turned himself in to Zionist troops following searches in the nearby Bethlehem area, the military added.
Israeli media identified him as Ezzedine Malluh from Beit Awwa town, located 22 kilometers (13.6) miles West of Al-Khalil.
Meanwhile, Abu Obeida, spokesman for Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, praised the “heroic” shooting operation.
“We bless the Al-Quds shooting operation that was carried out by one of the bravest of our people in the occupied West Bank,” Abu Obeida said.
Abu Obeida also called on the resistance fighters across the West Bank to step up their anti-Israeli operations in support of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
Since the Zionist regime unleashed a war on the besieged Gaza Strip in early October 2023, casualties have been rising in the West Bank as a result of intensified near-daily Israeli raids into villages and cities in the occupied territories.
At least 811 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or extremist settlers since the war began. More than 6,450 Palestinians have been wounded as well, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
At least 44,835 Palestinians, most of them women and children, have also been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip during the regime’s genocidal war.