Two Israeli soldiers were injured in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank town of Hawara on Saturday, according to Israeli military.
It's the latest attack on Israeli personnel in the region. The Israeli-Palestinian tensions have over the past year been the highest in over a decades with frequent Palestinian attacks and near-daily Israeli raids in Palestinian territories.
The Saturday's attack in Hawara was the third to take place in the Palestinian town of Hawara in less than a month. One soldier was seriously wounded and the second was in moderate condition, the military said. A manhunt was launched as forces sealed roads leading to Hawara.
The armed wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLOP), the second largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group ruling the Gaza Strip, praised it.
"The resistance in the West Bank can surprise the occupation every time and the occupation cannot enjoy safety," Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said.
Both PFLOP and Hamas are committed to the destruction of Israel and the establishment of a singular Palestinian state in the region. Hamas is the largest and principal Palestinian terrorist organisation.
Think tank Counter Extremism Project says, "The group’s ideology blends Islamism and Palestinian nationalism and seeks the destruction of Israel and the creation of an Islamic state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River...Hamas’s preferred methods include suicide bombings, rocket and mortar attacks, shootings, and kidnappings."
The US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) notes that PFLOP a leftist terrorist organisation.
"The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is a terrorist group based in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It combines Arab nationalism with Marxist-Leninist ideology, viewing the destruction of Israel as integral to the struggle to remove Western capitalism from the Middle East and ultimately establish a Communist Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital," notes NCTC.
Violence has surged in recent months in the West Bank and east Jerusalem amid near-daily Israeli arrest raids in Palestinian-controlled areas and a string of Palestinian attacks.
U.S.-backed regional efforts to defuse tensions have led to the meeting of Israeli and Palestinian officials in Jordan and Egypt respectively, where parties hoped to prevent a further escalation during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
On Feb. 27, when Israeli and Palestinian officials met in Jordan's Aqaba, a Palestinian gunman shot and killed two Israelis in Hawara. Another shooting attack in Hawara took place as the parties met again in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh, wounding two Israelis.
Eighty-six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli or settler fire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks have killed 15 Israelis in the same period. Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
(With AP inputs)
