On 26 February 2023, an unidentified person fatally shot two

Israeli settlers Israeli may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel * Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel * Modern Hebrew, a language * ''Israeli'' (newspaper), published from 2006 to 2008 * Guni Israeli (b ...

in their car in

Huwara Huwara or Howwarah (, ) is a Palestinian town located in the Nablus Governorate of the State of Palestine. Located in the northern Israeli-occupied West Bank, Huwara is on the main road connecting Nablus southwards to Ramallah and Jerusalem, a ...

, a town south of

Nablus Nablus ( ; , ) is a State of Palestine, Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 156,906. Located between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a ...

in the

Israeli-occupied West Bank The West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has been under military occupation by Israel since 7 June 1967, when Israeli forces captured the territory, then ruled by Jordan, during the Six-Day War. The status of the West Bank as a militarily oc ...

. Following the shooting, Israeli settlers carried out revenge attacks on Palestinians, which have killed at least one Palestinian and injured around 100 others. On 7 March, one 49-year-old suspect was killed during an Israeli incursion into

Jenin Jenin ( ; , ) is a city in the West Bank, Palestine, and is the capital of the Jenin Governorate. It is a hub for the surrounding towns. Jenin came under Israeli occupied territories, Israeli occupation in 1967, and was put under the administra ...

Shooting

Incident

On 26 February 2023, four days after the incursion in Nablus, an unidentified attacker shot and killed two Israelis in a car near the Einbus intersection along Highway 60 in Huwara, south of Nablus. The attacker shot the two Israelis with an

M16 rifle The M16 (officially Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of assault rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States Armed Forces, United States military. The original M16 was a 5.56×45mm NATO, 5.56×45mm automatic ...

while they were driving and then fled the scene on foot.

Assailant

Sources pointed to a

Hamas The Islamic Resistance Movement, abbreviated Hamas (the Arabic acronym from ), is a Palestinian nationalist Sunni Islam, Sunni Islamism, Islamist political organisation with a military wing, the Qassam Brigades. It has Gaza Strip under Hama ...

gunman as the assailant, but no group claimed responsibility for the shooting. On March 7, the suspected attacker, 49-year-old Abdel Fattah Hussein Kharousha, was killed along with five other Palestinians during an Israeli raid in Jenin.

Victims

The two Israelis killed in the shooting were brothers named Hillel Menachem Yaniv and Yagel Ya’acov Yaniv. They were from the

Har Brakha Har Brakha, more commonly spelled Har Bracha (, ''lit.'' Mount fBlessing) is an Israeli settlement located on the southern ridge of Mount Gerizim at an elevation of above sea level, in the West Bank's Samarian Mountains, near the Palestinian ...

settlement, and were described as

yeshiva A yeshiva (; ; pl. , or ) is a traditional Jewish educational institution focused on the study of Rabbinic literature, primarily the Talmud and halacha (Jewish law), while Torah and Jewish philosophy are studied in parallel. The stu ...

students. One of the brothers had just completed his service in the

Israeli Navy The Israeli Navy (, ''Ḥeil HaYam HaYisraeli'', ; ) is the Israel Defense Forces#Arms, naval warfare service arm of the Israel Defense Forces, operating primarily in the Mediterranean Sea theater as well as the Gulf of Eilat and the Red Sea th ...

Subsequent riots

Later on the same day, groups of

rioted in the region, carrying out revenge attacks. One Palestinian man was fatally shot in the abdomen in neighboring Za'tara. An analysis by journalists for ''

+972 Magazine ''+972 Magazine'' is an Israeli left wing news and opinion online magazine, established in August 2010 by a collective of four Israeli writers in Tel Aviv. Noam Sheizaf, a co-founder and the ''+972'' chief executive officer, said they wanted to ...

'' of 14 videos of the assault conducted by 40-50 settlers, who had returned to Za'tara after being repulsed the first time, concluded that the simultaneous attack on Za'atara in which Sameh Aqtesh was shot dead was conducted under Israeli army escort. In Huwara itself, 98 Palestinians were injured as settlers torched Palestinian homes.

References