2025 Al-Funduq Shooting Attack, West Bank

Overview

At around midday on 6 January 2025, three Palestinian gunmen armed with assault rifles stepped out of a white sedan and opened fire at close range on a bus and two civilian cars traveling along Highway 55 near the town of al-Funduq in the northern West Bank. Three Israelis were killed and eight others were wounded, including the 63-year-old bus driver, who was hospitalized in serious condition. The gunmen fled the scene after an armed civilian returned fire with a handgun, prompting the Israel Defense Forces to launch an immediate manhunt backed by roadblocks and increased checkpoints across the area.

The victims were identified as police officer Elad Yaakov Winkelstein, 35, and two women, Aliza Rais, 70, and Rachel Cohen, 73. The attack occurred amid a broader escalation of violence between Israeli forces and Palestinian militant factions across the West Bank, which had intensified since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

Attribution

Hamas's Al-Qassam Brigades publicly claimed responsibility for the attack two days later, on 8 January 2025, stating that the operation was carried out jointly with the al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. The three gunmen — identified as Mohammed Zakarneh, a Palestinian Islamic Jihad member, and Qutaiba al-Shalabi and Mohammed Nazal, both affiliated with Hamas — were reported to be based in the Jenin area and linked to the Jenin Brigades, a local militant umbrella coalition. Israeli forces killed al-Shalabi and Nazal near Jenin on 22 January 2025; Zakarneh was killed in a subsequent operation on 16 April 2025.

Context

The attack came at a moment when the Jenin Brigades were under sustained pressure from a Palestinian Authority security operation in Jenin aimed at curbing militant activity in the refugee camp. Analysts characterized the shooting as a demonstrative act intended to signal that the PA crackdown could not suppress militant capacity to strike Israeli targets, reinforcing the West Bank's role as a secondary front in the wider conflict following the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel and the subsequent Gaza war.

International Response

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced approval of expanded military operations in the West Bank aimed at capturing the attackers and deterring further violence. In the aftermath, multiple reports emerged of retaliatory attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities in parts of the occupied West Bank, further inflaming tensions in the region. The attack drew condemnation from Israeli officials as part of a pattern of continued militant violence despite the ongoing Gaza ceasefire negotiations at the time.