JERUSALEM – Israeli forces shot and killed two Palestinian assailants who infiltrated into a West Bank settlement and attacked an Israeli, the military said Wednesday.
Witnesses told Israeli Army Radio that the Palestinians were armed with a knife and clubs and forced their way into a home in the Eli settlement, where they wounded the Israeli. A spokeswoman for a Jerusalem hospital said the man was lightly wounded.
The military said the forces opened fire "upon the significant threat to the people of the community."
The Palestinian Health Ministry identified the attackers as Labeeb Azzam and Mohammed Zakhloul, both 17-year-old high school students.
Wednesday's incident is the latest in more than five months of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Since September, 28 Israelis have been killed in near-daily Palestinian attacks. Some 170 Palestinians have been killed, the majority of which Israel says were attackers. The rest were killed in clashes with Israeli troops.
Meanwhile, the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din said the Israeli military has revoked land seizure orders issued more than 30 years ago, allowing for 420 acres of West Bank land to be returned to its Palestinian owners. The land was seized for military purposes in the 1970s and 1980s but was barely used by the military, Yesh Din said, adding that the nullification of such orders by the military is rare.
Yesh Din provided The Associated Press with the revocation orders. The military had no immediate comment.
Israel has seized thousands of hectares of private Palestinian land in the West Bank for military purposes.
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