School Bus Targeted in West Bank Gun Attack

Medics and the army said three people including a boy were wounded in a gun attack that targeted a school bus near the city of Jericho in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

After reports that a militant fired toward "a number of vehicles", soldiers were sent to the scene near the town of Al-Auja, the military said, adding that soldiers were pursuing the suspect.

The military confirmed a school bus had been targeted.

Violence has surged in the West Bank since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip in October. The war began with Hamas's unprecedented attack against Israel on October 7 that left about 1,160 people dead.

More than 440 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank since the war broke out, according to the Palestinian Authority, which has partial administrative control in the West Bank.

At least 17 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed in attacks there over the same period, say the Israeli authorities.

Israeli forces pounded besieged Gaza in the war sparked by the October 7 attack and fought Hamas around several hospitals despite a UN Security Council demand for a ceasefire.

Talks in Qatar towards a truce and hostage release deal, involving US and Egyptian mediators, have brought no result so far, with Israel and the Palestinian militant group blaming each other.

Tensions have risen between Israel and its top ally the United States over the soaring civilian death toll and dire food shortages in Gaza, and Israeli plans to push its ground offensive into the far-southern city of Rafah, which is packed with displaced civilians.

Gaza has endured almost six months of war and a siege that has cut off most food, water, fuel and other supplies, and the UN has warned that its 2.4 million people are on the brink of a "man-made famine".