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Jan. 6 (UPI) -- Three Israelis were killed and at least eight wounded Monday in the northeastern part of the West Bank when two gunmen opened fire on a bus and two cars, military authorities said. Israel Defense Forces dispatched a significant troop contingent and a helicopter to hunt for the gunmen in and around the Palestinian village of al-Funduq, where the attack took place on the busy Route 55 used by thousands of Palestinian and Israeli motorists every day.
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The military said it set up roadblocks in the area and sealed off the city of Nablus and several villages nearby.
Israel's national emergency service, Magen David Adom, said in a social media post that two women in their 60s in one of the cars were pronounced dead at the scene and that the third deceased was a man in his 40s in the second car.
The 63-year-old driver of the bus and at least seven passengers were injured. The driver was being treated in the hospital in serious condition, two women were in moderate condition and five others sustained minor injuries, MDA said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, while extending his sympathy to the families of those killed and injured, vowed to hunt down all those responsible and make them pay.
"We will find the abhorrent murderers and settle accounts with them and with all those who aided them. No one will get away," he wrote in a post on X.
"My wife and I send heartfelt condolences to the families of the three people who were murdered in the terrible attack this morning, and wishes for a full recovery to those who were wounded."
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calls for an end to cooperation with the Palestinian Authority following this morning's terror shooting in Al Funduk in the northern West Bank in which three people were killed.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack but it was praised by Hamas which called it a "heroic response to the ongoing crimes" carried out by Israel in Gaza.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatened swift retribution against the West Bank and called for Israel's government to cut off all cooperation with the Palestinian Authority and prioritize settlers' security over Palestinians' freedom of movement.
"Whoever strives for an end to the war in Gaza will receive a war in Judea and Samaria," he wrote in a post on X.
Judea and Samaria is the name used in the bible for the territory that now forms the West Bank.
Highway bypass construction to take Route 55, which connects Tel Aviv to Nablus via several West Bank Israeli settlements and Palestinian towns, around al-Funduq was due to begin in February.
