Israeli Soldiers Kill Four Palestinians in West Bank

Four Palestinians were killed in the West Bank by Israeli soldiers, their family said as they stood around the bullet-ridden car of one of the slain men, Mohammad Abadeh.

The Israeli army released a statement saying soldiers and border police were conducting an operation in the West Bank village, near Ramallah, to apprehend a person whom they believed had attempted to set fire to a caravan the previous night in Sde Ephraim farm, an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

In the statement they said four Palestinians attempted to flee the scene and run over the Israeli forces who responded by shooting at them.

Meanwhile U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Israel’s Opposition party leader Yair Lapid in Tel Aviv to discuss the ceasefire proposal outlined by Washington to end the Gaza war, a plan that the United Nations Security Council voted to support.

The army said they had recovered weapons and explosives in the vehicle after the shooting.

On his eighth trip to the Middle East since the war started, the top U.S. diplomat called on countries in the region to pressure the Palestinian militant group to approve the draft.

The U.S. has said Israel has accepted the ceasefire deal, although Israeli officials have not formally announced this.

Hamas militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 others hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

In response, Israel launched an assault on the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.

Palestinian factions responded by calling for a general strike in Ramallah and there was a small protest march.

Violence in the West Bank, already on the rise before the war in Gaza, has escalated further, with stepped-up Israeli military raids, settler violence and Palestinian street attacks.