HAWARA, West Bank — Israel sent hundreds more troops to the occupied West Bank on Monday, a day after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israelis and settlers rampaged through a Palestinian town, torching homes and vehicles in the worst such violence in decades.
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 U.S. 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.
As the violence raged in the West Bank, such an attempt at conflict management was taking place Sunday in Jordan, with the U.S. bringing together Israeli and Palestinian officials to work out a plan for de-escalation.
Sunday’s events kicked off when a Palestinian gunman shot and killed brothers Hillel and Yagel Yaniv, ages 21 and 19, from the Jewish settlement of Har Bracha, in a shooting ambush in the Palestinian town of Hawara in the 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. In one video, a crowd of settlers stood in prayer as they stared at a building in flames.
Late Sunday, a 37-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli fire, two Palestinians were shot and wounded and another was beaten with an iron bar, Palestinian health officials said. Some 95 Palestinians were being treated for tear gas inhalation, according to medics.
On Monday morning, the Hawara thoroughfare was lined with rows of burned-out cars and smoke-blackened buildings. Normally bustling shops remained shuttered. Palestinian media said some 30 homes and cars were torched.
The Yaniv brothers were to be laid to rest in Jerusalem on Monday.
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, described the situation as “a tense quiet.” He said the army deployed hundreds of additional troops to the area with the aim of de-escalation. Two battalions were sent late Sunday and a third on Monday, with several hundred soldiers each.
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