Israel sent hundreds of troops to the occupied West Bank on Monday after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israelis and settlers rampaged through a Palestinian town, torching homes and vehicles.
The responses to the rampage laid bare some rifts in Israel’s new Right-wing government, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealing for calm while a member of his ruling coalition praised the rampage as deterrence against Palestinian attacks.
The events also underscored the limitations of the traditional US approach to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Washington has been trying to prevent escalation while staying away from the politically costly task of pushing for a resolution of the core disputes.
Sunday’s events started after a Palestinian gunman shot and killed brothers Hillel and Yagel Yaniv, aged 21 and 19, from the Jewish settlement of Har Bracha, in an ambush in the Palestinian town of Hawara, northern West Bank. The gunman fled. Following the shooting, groups of settlers rampaged along the main thoroughfare in Hawara, which is used by both Palestinians and Israeli settlers.
