IDF troops exchange fire with Palestinian gunmen near tense West Bank barrier zone

Israel Defense Forces soldiers shot two Palestinian gunmen in a firefight as they tried to apprehend the pair near the West Bank security barrier, the military said early Wednesday.

No Israeli troops were reported hurt in the exchange, which occurred near the scene of a shooting attack less than 24-hours earlier. The condition of the two Palestinians was not immediately clear.

According to the IDF, army spotter monitoring the so-called seam zone between the West Bank and Israel near the Palestinian village of Jalamah in the northern West Bank spotted two suspects in the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday. Troops dispatched to investigate “flanked” the pair and began arrest protocols.

At that point “the suspects opened fire at the soldiers,” the military said in a statement. “IDF troops took cover and shot at the suspects, neutralizing them.”

No other details were immediately available.

The exchange came as tensions have spiked in the region in recent weeks with Israeli forces ratcheting up arrest raids and other counter-terror efforts, which Palestinians say have inflamed anger.

A senior Israeli official told reporters accompanying Prime Minister Yair Lapid to Germany on Monday that Israel was “toughening up IDF operations in places like Jenin and Nablus.”

On Tuesday morning, a Defense Ministry engineering vehicle working along the security barrier in the same area came under gunfire. There were no injuries, but the vehicle was damaged.

In June, the Defense Ministry began to upgrade a section of the barrier in the northern West Bank after a series of deadly terror attacks were committed by Palestinians who illegally entered Israel earlier in the year.

Much attention has been focused on the seam zone, a swath of West Bank land on the Israeli side of the barrier. In recent months, the IDF has dispatched thousands of troops to the area to prevent Palestinians from crossing into Israel illegally.

Jalamah is located adjacent to the security barrier just north of Jenin, where a number of the attacks earlier in the year originated and where the IDF has concentrated much of its anti-terror campaign.

Israeli troops have repeatedly come under gunfire during nightly raids in the West Bank. The military launched the operation after a series of deadly attacks that killed 19 people between mid-March and the beginning of May.

More than 2,000 suspects have been detained since the beginning of the year, according to the Shin Bet security agency.