Gunman Kills One, Wounds Five in Central Israel Shooting Before Police Kill Suspect

A gunman opened fire in central Israel on Sunday, killing one person and wounding five others in an attack near the entrance to Kochav Yair before Israeli police shot and killed the suspect, authorities and medics said.

The shooting unfolded at a gas station at the Kochav Yair junction and in the nearby communities of Tzur Yitzhak and Tzur Natan, not far from the occupied West Bank city of Qalqilya. A 35-year-old man died of his gunshot wounds, and two of the five injured were listed in serious condition, according to emergency services.

Israeli police said the attacker was a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship from the city of Tayibe. Officers killed the suspect following a manhunt and recovered the weapon used in the assault, police said, adding that they had launched raid campaigns in Tayibe and imposed security cordons on neighboring Arab villages as the investigation widened.

Lior Zilberberg of Magen David Adom, Israel's national emergency medical service, described the rush to respond. "We immediately stopped the exercise and set out with intensive care units and ambulances," he said, recounting how teams that had been conducting a drill were diverted to treat the wounded at the scene.

Hamas commended the shooting as "heroic" but stopped short of directly claiming responsibility for it. The Palestinian armed group has frequently praised attacks against Israelis without asserting operational control, and there was no immediate indication that the gunman acted on behalf of any organization.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said it held a situational assessment in the aftermath, and security forces remained on heightened alert. The attack added to a tense backdrop in the region, where violence has flared repeatedly amid the broader conflict, and it raised fresh questions about security inside Israel's pre-1967 lines. Authorities did not immediately disclose a motive, and the investigation was continuing into how the gunman obtained the weapon and planned the assault.