Al-Qassam Brigades claim responsibility for West Bank shooting

The military wing of Hamas has claimed responsibility for a shooting on Friday that left one Israeli dead and another wounded.

The attack, near the West Bank settlement of Dolev, saw a Palestinian shoot two people who were in a car at close range on Friday afternoon.

A spokesperson for the Israeli military, Peter Lerner, later announced that one of the men, described as 25-year-old hiker Danny Gonen, had been killed while the other remained in hospital.

In a statement released on Friday evening, the al-Qassam Brigades said the attack had been carried out after “continuous observation” of the area.

The statement claimed that the attackers returned back to their homes safely after the shooting – Israeli police later said that they were conducting a “manhunt”.

According to the statement, the attack was launched “as the latest in a string of operations in recent months…and as a reply to the deaths of several citizens”.

The statement mentioned two young men, Izzedine Bin Ghara and Abdullah Ghanayem, both in their early twenties, who were killed last week during clashes with the Israeli army.

West Bank settlements are considered illegal under international law, and Israelis have previously been attacked in and near them.

The attack was condemned by the UN envoy to the Middle East, Nikolay Mladenov, who called for calm in the area.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, promised a strong response, warning that "the attempts to harm us are continuing always.

"We will continue fighting against [such attacks] with all the tools at our disposal," Netanyahu said in a Facebook post on Friday.

Friday's shooting came amidst intense speculation in the local press that Hamas could be on the verge of signing a deal with Israel for a five-year ceasefire in exchange for the right to establish a free port in the blockaded Gaza Strip and a prisoner exchange.

Such reports have been denied by Hamas, though sources have confirmed that an "indirect exchange of ideas" is ongoing. 

The attack also came days before the first anniversary of the abduction of three teenage settlers near the West Bank city of Hebron.

The abduction sparked a huge manhunt that lasted more than two weeks and saw hundreds of Palestinians arrested and questioned.

The discovery of the teens’ bodies on 30 June led to an escalation in tensions that saw the Israeli army embark just four days later on Operation Protective Edge, a 51-day military operation in the Gaza Strip.

The ensuing conflict killed 2,205 Palestinians according to UN figures, including at least 1,483 civilians, while 71 people, 66 of them soldiers, were killed on the Israeli side.