Gunmen opened fire on a bus and two private cars near al-Funduq on Highway 55 in the north of the occupied West Bank on the event date, killing three Israelis and injuring eight more people, according to the Israeli military and paramedics. The dead were identified as two women in their 70s and a 35-year-old police officer, while the bus driver was seriously wounded. The attack unfolded in a compact stretch of road that connects Israeli settlements and Palestinian communities and is frequently watched closely for signs of escalation.
The emergency response described by Magen David Adom suggested a scene that was chaotic but contained to several vehicles rather than one single target. Paramedic Avichai Ben Tzurya said medics found multiple victims in private cars with severe gunshot wounds and shattered glass injuries inside the bus. Israeli media, citing military officials, said at least two Palestinian gunmen took part and fled the scene after the shooting. Security forces then moved quickly to set roadblocks and encircle several towns in the area as the manhunt continued.
Israeli police named the officer who died as Master Sergeant Elad Yaakov Winkelstein, a police investigator from Kibbutz Ein Hanatziv who worked in the settlement of Ariel. Israeli media later identified the women as Aliza Reiss and Rachel Cohen, both in their 70s and both residents of Kedumim, a settlement just north-east of al-Funduq. Their car was reportedly one of the vehicles hit first, which is why the attack quickly became a matter of concern far beyond the immediate roadside scene.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the government would bring the killers to justice, along with anyone who helped them, while Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered the military to act forcefully in every location linked to the attackers. There was no immediate claim from any Palestinian armed group, but Hamas praised the attack as a response to what it called Israel's crimes, including the war in Gaza. The Israeli response made clear that the attack would be treated not as an isolated roadside ambush but as part of a wider campaign of pursuit and retaliation.
The shooting came during a period of persistent violence across the West Bank, where hundreds of Palestinians and dozens of Israelis had already been killed since the war triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel. The BBC report also noted that two Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces elsewhere in the West Bank on the same day, underscoring how quickly violence there can spread across separate flashpoints. Against that backdrop, the al-Funduq attack sharpened tensions around Highway 55, the settlement network and the difficulty of stopping small armed groups once they begin firing and disappear into the surrounding area.
Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since occupying the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967, and most of the international community regards the settlements as illegal under international law. Israel disputes that position, and the BBC report said an International Court of Justice advisory opinion issued in July supported the international legal view. That larger dispute sits in the background of every attack on roads that thread through the territory. In this case, three people were killed in a matter of seconds, but the political shock reverberated much further than the roadside where the shooting began.
