Palestinian militants killed three people and wounded at least six others Friday in two separate attacks after Israel conducted airstrikes in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
In the first deadly attack, two British-Israeli sisters in their 20s were shot to death near a settlement in the occupied West Bank. Their 45-year-old mother was seriously injured.
The family lived in the Efrat settlement in the Jordan Valley, about 7 miles south of Jerusalem. Israeli Defense Force soldiers are currently searching for person and people responsible for the drive-by shooting.
Hours later in Tel Aviv, a man drove his car onto a bike path near a seaside park, police said. He killed a 30-year-old Italian man and injured at least five other British and Italian tourists. Police shot and killed the driver on the scene following the attack, but have not named him.
No group has claimed responsibility for the Friday attacks in Israel and the West Bank.
The two fatal incidents came after increased fighting in the region, sparked by Israel’s raid on Al-Aqsa mosque earlier this week, where video showed Israeli police brutally beating Palestinian worshippers.
The place of worship in Jerusalem’s Old City is regarded as the third holiest site in Islam. Israeli police arrested and beat hundreds of Palestinians there, sparking international condemnation.
In response, rockets from both Lebanon and Gaza were launched into Israel. The Israeli government claimed Hamas launched the rockets into Northern Israel Thursday, though nobody was injured in the attacks.
Then, Israel bombed both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip Friday morning. In Gaza City, houses and a children’s hospital were damaged in the strikes that the Israeli military said had been targeting Hamas tunnels and weapon-making sites.
There were no reported deaths from the Israeli airstrikes, although multiple people in the southern Lebanese town of Qalili were injured.
“I immediately gathered my wife and children and got them out of the house,” local resident Bilal Suleiman said.
Muhanad Abu Neama, a taxi driver in Southern Lebanon, said the air strikes hit his home and his family barely escaped.
“I could hardly see because of the dust, the dirt covered my sisters’ beds and I carried them out one by one,” the 23-year-old said.
The strikes in Lebanon also hit a flock of sheep near a Palestinian refugee camp, a bridge, a power transformer, and an irrigation system.
Following the two deadly incidents Friday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called up reserve forces in Israel’s paramilitary border police to “confront the terror attacks.”
Despite the two attacks, worries about large-scale conflict seemed to subside by late Friday.
“Nobody wants an escalation right now,” an Israeli Defense Force spokesperson said. “Quiet will be answered with quiet, at this stage I think, at least in the coming hours.”
With Post wires