The Israeli military says it has killed two Palestinian militants who carried out a deadly attack on a bus in the occupied West Bank earlier this month.
The two men barricaded themselves in a structure in the West Bank village of Burqin and exchanged fire with Israeli troops before they were killed overnight, the Israeli military said. The army said a soldier was moderately wounded.
Mohammed Nazzal and Katiba al-Shalabi were operatives with the Islamic Jihad militant group, the military said.
The Hamas militant group released a statement which claimed the two men were members of its armed wing and praised the bus attack. Hamas and the smaller Islamic Jihad are allies that sometimes carry out attacks together.
The bus attack on 6 January killed three people and wounded six others.
It comesafter at least 10 Palestinians were killed during an Israeli raid in the West Bank. The raid, in the northern city of Jenin, wounded at least 40 people, Palestinian health officials said, in an operation which Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said would be “extensive and significant”.
The Israeli military said the aim of such a large-scale operation was to ensure militant groups “are not rearming a few hundred metres from Israeli communities”.
The violence comes days after the start of a ceasefire in the war in Gaza, triggered by an attack by Hamas on 7 October that killed around 1,200 people and saw another 250 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive inside Gaza has killed 47,000 Palestinians, according to health ministry officials in the enclave.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
Meanwhile, Israel’s ambassador to the United States said the two countries are in talks about the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon as a deadline in the ceasefire with Hezbollah militants approaches.
Michael Herzog said in an interview with Israeli Army Radio on Thursday that he believed Israel would “reach an understanding” with the Trump administration, without elaborating. Israeli media have previously reported that Israel is seeking to postpone the completion of its pullout.
Under the US-brokered ceasefire that ended more than a year of fighting linked to the war in the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces are supposed to complete their withdrawal from southern Lebanon by Sunday.
Israel had reportedly agreed with the Biden administration to stay longer but President Donald Trump is urging it to withdraw on time.
There was no immediate comment from the United States.
Israeli officials have said Lebanese troops are not deploying fast enough in the areas Israeli troops are supposed to vacate. Under the ceasefire, the Lebanese army is to patrol a buffer zone in southern Lebanon alongside United Nations peacekeepers.
Hezbollah has threatened to resume its rocket and drone fire if Israel does not withdraw on time.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
