Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered the immediate sealing of Hebron and instructed officials to prepare a full closure of the West Bank, VG reports, after a shooting attack at a checkpoint on Friday left five Israelis wounded.
Two of the injured are in critical condition, according to the report. The Israeli military said soldiers shot and killed two suspected attackers at the scene.
According to the army, the two Palestinians were armed with an automatic rifle and a handgun respectively. A photographer working for the news agency AFP captured an image of one of them running with a pistol in his hand.
Citing security sources, the newspaper Haaretz reported that an exchange of fire lasted roughly 20 minutes before the two Palestinians were killed.
Why it matters
The closure order affects roughly 3.4 million Palestinians living in the West Bank, and it comes days before Israelis vote in elections for a new parliament on Tuesday, with the opposition leading in the polls.
The timing places the attack at the center of an already tight campaign. Netanyahu has directed his own right-wing party, Likud, to call off all campaign events in response to the Hebron shooting, VG reports.
A push from the far right
Israel's far-right security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, demanded that the Palestinian Authority be dissolved as a consequence of the attack.
In a statement, he said the Palestinian Authority must be dissolved and demilitarized, and that its "terror infrastructure" must be wiped out completely, according to VG.
No evidence has been presented linking the Palestinian Authority to Friday's attack outside Hebron.
What to watch
Whether the closure is formally imposed in full, and how the attack reshapes the final days of campaigning before Tuesday's vote.
