Suspected Palestinian shooting attack on Israeli bus kills child

Near Beit Jala: A suspected Palestinian shooting attack on an Israeli bus in the occupied West Bank killed a child overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, Israeli emergency services said.

The Israeli military said its forces were in pursuit of the gunman and had set up roadblocks and encircled an area near the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.

At least four people were wounded, among them a child of around the age of 12, who was critically hurt and died later in a Jerusalem hospital, medics and the hospital said.

Violence in the West Bank was already on the rise before the war in Gaza erupted on October 7 last year and has surged since, with frequent Israeli military raids, violence by Jewish settlers and Palestinian street attacks on Israelis.