WEST BANK: Hundreds of Israeli troops were searching the West Bank Friday for the suspected Palestinian killers of a Jewish settler couple shot in their car before their young children's eyes, the army said.
Rabbi Eitam Henkin and his wife, Naama, both in their 30s, were shot as they were travelling in their car Thursday night between the settlements of Itamar and Elon More, in the north of the Israeli-occupied territory.
Their four children, aged between four months and nine years, were found unharmed in the back of the vehicle.
Army spokesman Colonel Peter Lerner said the Henkin couple was "massacred right in front of" them.
A paramedic described the scene of the shooting as "difficult".
"We saw a car in the middle of the road, and next to it, a man in his 30s lay on the ground with upper body gunshot wounds," Boaz Malka was quoted as saying by Israeli media.
Israel's foreign ministry said "at least two" gunmen targeted the vehicle in a "drive-by" attack, but the exact circumstances of the incident were unclear.
Israeli forces were conducting an "intensive search" on the ground, said army spokesman Arye Shalicar.
AFP
