Four Israelis sustained light injuries from shrapnel Sunday night after a makeshift bomb was thrown at them from a passing vehicle near the central West Bank village of Nabi Saleh.
This comes just hours after three Palestinian gunmen attacked a bus carrying Israeli soldiers in the West Bank's Jordan Valley, wounding six soldiers and one civilian.
According to an eyewitness, the assailants began shooting at the vehicle and hosed it with gasoline in an attempt to set it on fire.
The terrorists had to desert their getaway car after it caught fire from a gasoline bomb. Two suspects were captured shortly after by Israeli security forces and two guns were found in the vehicle. A third suspect remains at large.
According to initial estimates of military officials, the unusual attack — both in location and execution — was carried out by a local terrorist cell that obtained funding, gathered equipment and weapons and planned the layout in advance.
The Jordan Valley is considered relatively safe for Israelis compared with other parts of the West Bank. Security officials will be required to assess whether the location of the attack was specifically chosen by the attackers to see violence against Israelis proliferate to other parts of the territory. They will also investigate whether members of the cell — who all hail from the West Bank city of Jenin, a hotbed of Palestinian terrorist activity — received any aid from local Palestinians residing in the Jordan Valley.
2 View gallery
Israeli security forces inspect the charred vehicle of the terrorists, in Jordan Valley
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson's Unit)
The IDF is expected to beef up its presence around the Jordan Valley in hope of tracking down the third suspect as well as gathering intelligence on the attack.
Tensions throughout the West Bank have been simmering for months as Israel has been carrying out arrests of Palestinian terror suspects in the territory on an almost nightly basis as part of a massive counterterrorism operation prompted by a series of Palestinian attacks that left 19 Israelis dead earlier this year.
The Israeli crackdown is expected to expand to the Jordan Valley as well.