The shooting took place on Friday morning at the Judea Junction, also known as the Farsh al-Hawa checkpoint, near the West Bank city of Hebron. A journalist who witnessed the firefight described two Palestinian men in casual attire, armed with a handgun and an automatic rifle, exchanging fire with Israeli forces. The Israeli military said soldiers "eliminated two terrorists" and were continuing searches in the area.
The emergency service Magen David Adom said five people were wounded, two of them critically. An emergency response team member, Tzuriel Edri, said responders arrived "at a difficult scene while shooting was still taking place in the area," with two men in their 20s sustaining gunshot wounds to their lower limbs, one unconscious and seriously injured.
Netanyahu, who is running in elections on Tuesday, called for all political meetings to be cancelled and praised the troops' response. "I salute the courage of our soldiers who acted with determination and prevented what could have been a major attack," he said in a statement. "I have instructed the IDF and security forces to impose an immediate cordon on the city of Hebron and to prepare for a full lockdown of all of Judea and Samaria starting today." He also vowed to "pursue Hamas terrorists" everywhere, adding: "You have no place to hide."
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right politician rising in the polls, called for the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority to be dismantled over the attack. "The Palestinian Authority must be dismantled and demilitarized, and its terror infrastructure wiped out completely," he said in a statement. There is no evidence the Authority, the Palestinian government in the occupied West Bank, was connected to the attack.
Hamas, which is based in Gaza, described the shooting as an "exceptional heroic operation" and mourned the two dead assailants, but did not claim responsibility. It called the attack a "natural and legitimate response to the ongoing crimes and brutal attacks against our people." Former army chief Gadi Eisenkot, Netanyahu's main rival in the election, praised the troops and said he prayed for the full recovery of the injured.
The attack comes with tensions high in the West Bank, including over attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinian olive harvesters, and days before the election. According to a tally based on data from the Palestinian health ministry, Israeli forces or settlers have killed 1,113 Palestinians in the territory since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023. Israeli figures show at least 49 Israelis, including civilians and security personnel, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.
Separately, Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least four people in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, health officials there said, including a man in Gaza City, a man on a bike in Khan Younis, a man near the Nuseirat refugee camp and a woman near Jabalia. Israel's military said it had struck Hamas militants in several areas but was not aware of the reported incident in Jabalia. The strikes come despite a year-old US-brokered ceasefire that has made little progress over terms for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its troops. Palestinian health officials say at least 1,500 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire, while Israel says four of its soldiers have been killed.