Two Israelis killed in occupied West Bank

Two Israelis have been killed in a shooting on a car wash in a volatile stretch of the occupied West Bank, the latest outburst of violence to rock the region.

The Israeli military said it was searching for suspects and setting up roadblocks near the town of Hawara on Saturday, a flashpoint area in the northern West Bank, which has seen repeated attacks, including one deadly shooting that triggered a rampage by Israeli settlers who torched Palestinian property.

Saturday's shooting attack came after Palestinian medics reported that a 19-year-old Palestinian died of wounds sustained in an Israeli military raid into the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

The latest attack is part of a relentless spiral of violence that has fueled the worst fighting between the Palestinians and Israelis in the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades.

Since spring last year, Israel has launched near-nightly raids in Palestinian towns.

But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and those not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.

Israeli paramedics said that when they arrived at the Hawara car wash, two Israeli males, aged 60 and 29, were found unconscious with gunshot wounds.

Israeli media reported the two were identified as father and son, Shay Silas Nigreka and Aviad Nir from the southern Israeli city of Ashdod.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent his condolences to the family and vowed that the military would track down the shooter.

Settlers’ violence

Crowds of settlers torched dozens of cars and homes in some of the worst such violence in decades.

Similar settler mob violence has taken place elsewhere in the occupied West Bank in recent months.

Israeli rights groups say settler violence has worsened and that radical settlers have become emboldened because Israel’s far-right government has settler leaders in key positions who have vowed to take an especially hard line against the Palestinians.

After the deadly February shooting in Hawara, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a firebrand settler supporter, called for Israel to "erase" the town from the map.

He later walked back the remark after fierce criticism. Also on Saturday, 19-year-old Palestinian Mohammad Abu Asab was murdered by a gunshot wound to the head on Wednesday during an Israeli military raid on the Balata refugee camp near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.

At the time, the Israeli military had said that it raided Balata seeking to destroy an underground weapons factory when a gunfight erupted.

At least 218 Palestinians have been murdered as the result of Israeli violence this year.

But a UN tally showed at least 196 Palestinians and 24 people in Israel have been killed in hostilities since January.

Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war, along with Gaza and East Jerusalem.

Excluding occupied East Jerusalem, the territory is home to nearly three million Palestinians and around 490,000 Israelis who live in illegal settlements.