2 women killed in shooting attack in West Bank with Israel on high alert

Two Israeli women were killed in a shooting in the occupied West Bank on Friday and Israel reinforced troops near its borders after cross-frontier violence and police raids at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque raised concerns of a broadening conflict.

Despite militants firing salvoes of rockets from Lebanon and Gaza over the past day and the Israeli military replying with air strikes, no other serious injuries were reported along the borders and neither side seemed keen to intensify the fighting.

“Nobody wants an escalation right now”, an Israeli army spokesman said. “Quiet will be answered with quiet, at this stage I think, at least in the coming hours”.

One official with a Palestinian militant group said they were ready to keep the calm should Israel do the same, with the group having “made its point”.

Friday prayers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s walled Old City, which draws hundreds of thousands of worshippers during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan and where Israel has deployed large police forces, passed without major incidents.

Apart from some stone-throwing, police said the compound was quiet. The Palestinians and Jordan, who is custodian of holy sites in East Jerusalem, reject any Israeli police presence in the Old City.