Three gunmen who attacked a checkpoint near Jerusalem on Thursday, wounding six security forces, were killed as Israeli police fended them off, police said.
National police chief Kobi Shabtai told reporters the attackers carried pistols, axes and ammunition for "a major attack or a massacre in Israel".
Four members of the security services suffered gunshot wounds, including one who was critically injured, said the emergency medical service Magen David Adom in a statement, adding that two more were lightly wounded.
The attack on a checkpoint guarding road tunnels linking the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem came on the 41st day of the war between Israel and Gaza-based Hamas militants.
The West Bank has seen a dramatic rise in tension and violence since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
Israel has vowed to eradicate Hamas in retaliation for the attacks of October 7, which killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Hamas also took around 240 hostages, among them young children and elderly people, officials say.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says the death number from the military offensive has now topped 11,500, including thousands of children.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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