Six Israeli soldiers injured in attack at West Bank checkpoint near Jerusalem; three gunmen killed

Six security personnel were wounded, including one critically, in a Palestinian shooting attack targeting the “tunnels” checkpoint on the West Bank’s Route 60, south of Jerusalem, police said on Thursday. According to Times of Israel report, one of the victims of the attack said all the doors of a white Skoda opened at once, with each gunman shooting in a different direction, and security forces quickly returning fire. Police said the car in which the assailants arrived had false license plates, and identified two of them as Palestinians from the Hebron area, added the report. Police said many weapons were found inside the car, including two M16 rifles, two pistols, about 10 loaded magazines, hundreds of additional bullets, and two axes. Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai, who arrived at the scene, told Times of Israel that this indicated that they had planned a much larger-scale terror “massacre” inside Jerusalem. Meanwhile, the police confirmed that three gunmen who attacked the checkpoint were killed as Israeli police fended them off. National police chief Kobi Shabtai told reporters the attackers carried pistols, axes and ammunition for “a major attack or a massacre in Israel”. Four members of the security services suffered gunshot wounds, including one who was critically injured, said the emergency medical service Magen David Adom in a statement, adding that two more were lightly wounded. The attack on a checkpoint guarding road tunnels linking the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem came on the 41st day of the war between Israel and Gaza-based Hamas militants. The West Bank has seen a dramatic rise in tension and violence since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas in retaliation for the attacks of 7 October, which killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, according to Israeli officials. Hamas also took around 240 hostages, among them young children and elderly people, officials say. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says the death toll from the military offensive has now topped 11,500, including thousands of children.