Two Brit sisters killed in West Bank shooting that left mum injured in car attack as tensions mount over police raid
TWO British sisters have been killed in a shooting in the West Bank in a car attack that left their mum injured as tensions rise in the area.
The two women – one aged 15 and the other in her 20s – were shot dead while their mum was seriously wounded when their car was attacked close to the Hamra settlement.
The family are believed to have moved to Israel in 2005, Sky News reports.
Pictures from the scene show a badly damaged white car on the side of the road.
It is understood the vehicle was rammed after coming under fire and the two women died at the scene.
Their dad was travelling in another car behind them, the area’s mayor Oded Revivi said.
It comes after Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.
The military said the strikes were in retaliation for rocket attacks it blamed on the Islamist group Hamas as tensions following police raids this week on the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem threatened to spiral out of control.
Loud blasts rocked different areas of Gaza, as Israel said its jets hit ten targets including tunnels and weapons manufacturing and development sites of Hamas, which controls the blockaded southern coastal strip.
At around 4am, the military said it had also struck three Hamas infrastructure targets in southern Lebanon, where residents around the area of the Rashidiyeh refugee camp near the southern city of Tyre reported three loud blasts.
“We strongly condemn the blatant Zionist aggression against Lebanon in the vicinity of Tyre at dawn today,” Hamas said.
A member of Lebanon’s Civil Defense at the scene on Friday morning said there were no casualties.
The strikes came in response to rocket attacks from Lebanon towards northern Israeli areas, which Israeli officials blamed on Hamas.
The military said 34 rockets were launched from Lebanon, of which 25 were intercepted by air defence systems.
It was the biggest such attack since 2006, when Israel fought a war with the heavily armed Hezbollah movement.
“Israel’s response, tonight and later, will exact a significant price from our enemies,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following a security cabinet meeting.
As the Israeli jets struck in Gaza, salvoes of rockets were fired in response and sirens sounded in Israeli towns and cities in bordering areas.
However there were no reports of serious casualties and only one rocket hit a target, damaging a house in the southern town of Sderot.