A man was wounded in a shooting attack on Friday evening in the southern West Bank settlement of Adora.
After a brief manhunt, the three Palestinians who carried out the attack were killed by security forces, the military said.
The Israel Defense Forces said in a statement that the attackers opened fire at troops conducting a patrol in Adora.
One Israeli, aged 34, was hurt in the attack.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said the victim was shot in the leg and was in good-to-moderate condition. He was conscious when taken to hospital.
The IDF said troops chased after the attackers, and “during searches, three terrorists were identified and eliminated by security forces,” apparently in an industrial area close to the settlement.
Surveillance footage obtained by the Kan public broadcaster apparently showed the terrorists breaching the outer perimeter of the industrial area, crawling through a hole in the fence or underneath it.
An M16, a number of knives, a pickaxe and Molotov cocktails were apparently found on the bodies of the terrorists.
The military said troops were continuing to search the settlement.
The IDF Home Front Command ordered residents of Adora to remain in their homes and lock their doors and windows until further notice.
Security chiefs have reportedly warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu several times this month that the West Bank is on the brink of a major eruption in violence.
According to a Channel 12 news report on Monday, the warnings were relayed by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and other senior military commanders, who said Israel risked a new front in the West Bank amid the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and ongoing clashes on the northern border with the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah.
Besides Netanyahu, the report said the other members of the war cabinet were also warned of the prospect of major unrest in the West Bank.
The heightened concern comes on the heels of Israel’s withholding of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues from the Palestinian Authority, in addition to refusing to allow some 150,000 Palestinian workers to return to their jobs in Israel and the settlements, the report said, noting Netanyahu’s refusal to hold security cabinet votes to reverse both decisions amid pressure from his far-right coalition partners.
“We may end up with a third Intifada [in the West Bank] because of the discontent resulting from the economic difficulty and lack of entry of workers to Israel,” the IDF commanders were quoted as saying.
The network added that the military’s assessment was shared by the Shin Bet security service.
The reports came a day after an East Jerusalem Palestinian man was killed and a woman seriously wounded in a shooting near Ramallah, in what appeared to be the first deadly terror attack in the West Bank since November, though there have been several attempted attacks in that period. On December 31, two guards were injured in a stabbing at the entrance to the Mishor Adumim industrial zone, during which the assailant managed to grab a semi-automatic rifle.
Tensions in Israel and the West Bank have been high since October 7, when some 3,000 terrorists burst through the Gaza border into Israel in a Hamas-led attack, killing at least 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and seizing some 240 hostages. Israel responded with an aerial campaign and subsequent ground operation with the goal of destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages.
The Israel Defense Forces has continued to operate throughout the West Bank and police have been on high alert in Israel, in light of concerns about a possible escalation of violence.