Palestinian gunmen opened fire on Israelis standing at a Samaria bus stop Thursday, killing two people and wounding two others.
The shooting took place near the entrance to the Givat Asaf outpost, in the Binyamin region, shortly before noon.
According to available details, the terrorists' car slowed to a crawl as it approached the group waiting at the bus stop, then one of the passengers stepped out and opened fire on them. He then jumped back into the car, which sped away in the direction of Ramallah.
First responders who arrived at the bus stop pronounced two men in their 20s dead at the scene. A 20-year-old woman suffering from injuries to her lower extremities was rushed to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem in serious condition. Another victim, a 21-year-old man, sustained critical head injuries and was rushed to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in the capital.
Security forces scrambled to the scene and were canvassing the area for the terrorists. The vehicle was found, abandoned, near Ramallah, about an hour after the attack.
"Given the tensions on the ground, the IDF has bolstered its deployment across Judea and Samaria and has surrounded Ramallah," IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis said in a statement.
"Incidents like we have seen on Sunday and today inspire copycats. We are therefore focused, other than finding the terrorists, on increasing security on the roads in the area and preventing future incidents," he said.
Hamas, the terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip, and Islamic Jihad lauded the attack and threatened the uptick in violence was "only the beginning."
Hamas called on the Palestinians in Gaza and across the West Bank to stage mass demonstrations on Friday, to "defy the occupation."
Hamas spokesman Abdelatif al-Qanou tweeted, "The heroic operation is a response to the Zionist occupation's crimes and behavior in the occupied West Bank. The West Bank's youth and men will remain rebels against the occupation and continue to clash with it until it is banished."
The Palestinian Authority, for its part, was reportedly trying to de-escalate tensions, relaying messages to Israel that it had no interest in a flare-up in its territory.
However, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Fatah's military wing, issued a statement saying the violence was a "small response to the Israeli aggression in Palestinian cities." The group said that as long as Israeli forces raid Palestinian cities, "Israel will have to understand that retaliation will come."
Israeli forces routinely perform counterterrorism operations in Palestinian cities, especially when searching for terrorists who remain at large.
Thursday's attack comes on the heels of a similar shooting Sunday evening in which seven Israelis, including a pregnant woman, were wounded at a bus stop near the Samaria settlement of Ofra, just 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) north of Givat Asaf.
The woman's baby, delivered via emergency C-section at 30 weeks, was in critical condition for three days. He died on Wednesday evening.
Late Wednesday night, security forces killed one terrorist and apprehended four others for their involvement in the Ofra shooting.
A defense official said that at this time, no immediate link has been established between the cell that carried out Thursday's attack and the cell behind Sunday's shooting.
Earlier Thursday, two border policemen sustained minor wounds in a stabbing attack in the Old City of Jerusalem. Other police officers present at the scene shot and killed the assailant.
Police Spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the attack took place in the early hours of Thursday morning on Al Wad Hagai Street, near the Damascus Gate entrance to the Old City, when a terrorist armed with a knife stormed two border policemen standing guard nearby.
Magen David Adom emergency services paramedics were called to the scene to treat the two, a 21-year-old man and a 20-year-old woman, then rushed them to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in the capital for further treatment.
Rosenfeld noted that police forces throughout Jerusalem have been placed on high alert following the incident.
