Two Israelis killed in suspected West Bank shooting

A suspected Palestinian shooting attack killed two Israelis in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, the Israeli military said.

Israel’s Army Radio said the two men were shot dead at a car-wash in or near the Palestinian village of Huwara, the scene of previous deadly attacks on Israelis and retribution rampages by Jewish settlers including on that village.

The Israeli military said it was searching the area for the assailants and had set up blockades in the vicinity of the attack. Israel’s ambulance service confirmed two people had died in the shooting.

Violence in the West Bank has worsened over the past 15 months with stepped up Israeli raids, Palestinian street attacks and assaults by Jewish settlers on Palestinian villages.

Prospects of reviving US-brokered peace talks that collapsed almost a decade ago and had aimed to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, remain dim.

Israel captured the West Bank in a 1967 war and has since built dozens of settlements there that are considered illegal by most countries, a view Israel disputes.

The Palestinians have limited self-rule in the West Bank and remain split between a Western-backed administration there and the armed Hamas movement who controls Gaza and rejects coexistence with Israel.