Army: Two Israelis killed in West Bank car ramming attack

Two Israelis were killed in a car attack near the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the Israeli army said.

The army had previously reported a car attack near an Israeli settlement outside Nablus, telling AFP that “two Israeli citizens were killed.”

According to Israeli media, the army has launched a manhunt for the suspected attacker as violence escalates in the West Bank as a result of Israel’s war against Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip.

The Gaza war, with its deadly consequences to date, was triggered by the unprecedented attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, in which 1,189 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to a count by the AFP news agency based on official Israeli figures.

The militants also took 252 hostages, 121 of whom are still in the Gaza Strip. According to the Israeli army, 37 of them are dead.

According to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-controlled area, at least 36,171 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza.

Hamas welcomed the attack near Nablus and described it in a statement as a “natural reaction” to the “crimes of the enemy”.