Israeli forces kill three Palestinian gunmen who opened fire in W.Bank - police

Three suspected Palestinian assailants who opened fire at a checkpoint on a road between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Wednesday, wounding six Israeli security force members, were shot dead, Israeli police said.

Three suspected Palestinian assailants who opened fire at a checkpoint on a road between Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Wednesday, wounding six Israeli security force members, were shot dead, Israeli police said. At least two of the gunmen belonged to the Hamas militant group, according to Israel's domestic security service Shin Bet. Hamas did not immediately comment.

Police chief Yaakov Shabtai said the gunmen had planned a much bigger attack. They arrived in a vehicle from the direction of Bethlehem, Shabtai told reporters at the scene, and opened fire when Israeli forces there began questioning them. They were killed when the Israeli forces shot back, he said.

After the gunfight, police said they found two automatic rifles, two handguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, 10 fully loaded magazines and two axes on the suspects and in their vehicle. There was no immediate comment from Palestinian officials.

Footage on social media, shot from inside a bus, showed a man in uniform running and falling as gun shots ring out at the checkpoint in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. One of the people hurt by the gunmen was critically wounded, the Israeli ambulance service said, without identifying the person.

Tensions in the region have flared since a deadly attack by Hamas militants who burst through the border from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 240 hostages, including children, according to Israeli tallies. In response, Israel launched an air, ground and sea offensive in Gaza, killing more than 11,500 people, around 40% of them children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in the Hamas-run enclave.