Four children also wounded in attack which Israeli military says was perpetrated by a Palestinian

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A Palestinian assailant has shot and killed an Israeli couple driving with their four children along a West Bank road, the Israeli military has said, amid mounting unrest surrounding a Jerusalem site holy to Muslims and Jews.

The military said forces were scouring the area near the Palestinian village of Beit Furik after the attack on Thursday night. The four children in the car were lightly wounded.

“There was very, very massive fire,” Eli Bin, the director of Israel’s rescue service MDA, told Israeli Channel 2 TV news. “We didn’t have much choice but to pronounce them dead on the spot.”

He later told Israel Radio the intensity of the violence and the amount of gunfire was “something we haven’t seen here for a long time”.

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The attack comes as tensions continue to flare between Israelis and Palestinians over the Jerusalem site known to Jews as the Temple Mount, home to the biblical Temples, and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, site of the Al-Aqsa mosque and the spot from where the prophet Muhammad is said to have ascended to heaven.

Over the past two weeks, Palestinian protesters have clashed with Israeli police at the hilltop compound and unrest has spilled over to Arab neighbourhoods of east Jerusalem and the West Bank. In one incident in Jerusalem last month, an Israeli motorist was killed after his car was pelted with stones.



It was not immediately clear if a militant group was behind Thursday’s shooting or if it was a so-called “lone wolf” attack against Israelis staged by Palestinians who act spontaneously and with no militant support.

The armed wing of Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules the Gaza Strip, stopped short of claiming responsibility but welcomed the attack. “We praise the heroic operation that fighters in the West Bank carried out and we consider it a true response to the occupier’s crime,” the armed wing said on its Twitter page. It called for more attacks.

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The holy site in Jerusalem’s Old City is a frequent flashpoint and its fate is a core issue at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 war, as their future capital. Under a longstanding arrangement, Jews are allowed to visit the compound, but not pray there, while Jordan retains custodial rights.

Thursday’s shooting took place during Sukkot, a weeklong festival that celebrates the autumn harvest and commemorates the wandering of the ancient Israelites through the desert following the exodus from Egypt.

In ancient times, Jews made pilgrimages to Jerusalem on Sukkot, and many Jews are expected to visit the city throughout the holiday period, raising the risk of further unrest.

Calls by a group of religious Jews to visit the site on the eve of the Jewish New Year earlier this month sparked rumours among Palestinians that Israel was planning to disrupt the delicate status quo governing the site and take it over.

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These rumours, coupled with some Israeli restrictions on Muslim access to the mosque, fuelled the outbreak of violence two weeks ago. Israel denies having any plans to change the status quo.

Thursday’s violence also threatens to deepen a divide between Israelis and Palestinians over stalled peace negotiations, which collapsed last year, with few hopes of resuming soon.

In a reflection of the rift, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas told the United Nations general assembly on Wednesday that he was no longer bound to agreements that had defined relations with Israel for the past two decades.

While the declaration was blunted by the lack of any detail on how he plans to move forward, Israel said Abbas had delivered a “speech of lies that encourages incitement and unrest in the Middle East”.