JERUSALEM, June 21 (AP): Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government has approved plans to build 1,000 new homes in the West Bank settlement where four people were killed by a pair of Palestinian gunmen.
"Our answer to terror is to strike it hard and to build our country," Netanyahu said. The new homes are to be built in Eli - the site of Tuesday's deadly attack. The international community overwhelmingly opposes settlement construction in the occupied West Bank as obstacles to peace.
The Israeli military on Wednesday deployed additional forces across the occupied West Bank and prepared to demolish the homes of two Palestinian gunmen who killed four Israelis in one of the worst attacks in the past year of violence.
The families laid to rest the victims in the deadly shooting in the West Bank settlement of Eli, in which two Palestinian militants opened fire at a gas station restaurant.
Israeli media identified the four killed as Harel Masood, 21, Ofer Fayerman, 64, and Elisha Anteman, 18, Nahman-Shmuel Mordoff, 17. An Israeli civilian killed one assailant at the scene, while Israeli troops chased and killed the second shooter after he fled.
A Palestinian armed man opened fire at a gas station near an Israeli settlement in the West Bank on Tuesday, killing at least four people and wounding several others, Israeli medics said, as violence continued to roil the occupied territory.
The shooting underscored the fragility of the situation in the West Bank, where on Monday an Israeli military raid into the northern Jenin refugee camp ignited some of the fiercest Israeli-Palestinian fighting seen in years, killing six Palestinians. Armed group targeted Israeli military vehicles with roadside bombs and Israeli forces deployed helicopter gunships to evacuate stranded troops.
The intense surge in violence has killed 126 Palestinians and 24 people on the Israeli side so far this year, prompting many on either side of the conflict to fear a possible greater conflagration.
