Two Palestinian fighters were killed and one seriously wounded after they opened fire on an Israeli Border Police base in the northern West Bank on Friday.
The three Palestinians, armed with Carlo submachine guns and knives, attacked the Salem base, which straddles the Green Line, the 1949 armistice line between Israel and the West Bank, about 6 miles southwest of Afula. The injured Palestinian attacker was brought to Emek Medical Center in Afula. There were no reported injuries to the Israeli forces. “The terrorists fired at the gate of the base. Border Police officers and an IDF soldier responded by firing and neutralizing the three terrorists,” the Israel Police said in a statement.
Earlier on Friday, a 27-year-old Palestinian woman attempted to carry out a stabbing attack at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and was arrested by Border Police officers.
Israeli police and troops are on high alert ahead of a number of major events next week, including Jerusalem Day, when Israelis celebrate the reunification of the city in the 1967 Six-Day War; Laylat al-Qadr, when Muslims commemorate the angel Gabriel’s revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad; Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim holiday marking the end of Ramadan; Quds Day, set by Iran to express support for the Palestinian claim to Jerusalem; and Nakba Day, which mourns the displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Israeli-Palestinian tensions have been on the rise throughout the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which saw the launching of rockets and incendiary balloons from Gaza into Israel; violent clashes between Palestinian and far-right Jewish protesters and Israeli police in Jerusalem; the cancellation of elections by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas; and a hotly contested property dispute between Palestinians and Israelis in east Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.