1 Israeli killed, 2 injured in West Bank shooting attacks

JERUSALEM, March 17 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian killed an Israeli and severely injured two others in shooting and stabbing attacks before fleeing the scene on Sunday, Israeli army said.

Eli Bin, director of Israel's Magen David Adom medical emergency service, said the attacks took place outside the settlement of Ariel, southwest of Nablus city in the northern West Bank.

Jonathan Conricus, a spokesman for the army, said the assailant stabbed a soldier outside Ariel before grabbing his assault rifle. He used the weapon to open fire at passing vehicles, shooting civilians.

He then fled the scene in a car, firing toward soldiers along the way. He continued with the car to a nearby junction, where he fired toward people waiting at a bus stop before escaping the area.

Conricus said heavy forces arrived at the entrance to a village where the attacker seemed to hide.

It was not immediately clear if the attacker acted alone and if he was affiliated to any Palestinian militant group, Conricus added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed that Israel will find the assailant after the attacks.

"We are in pursuit of the perpetrator at two points in the Ariel area," he said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, adding that "I am certain that they will apprehend them and we will deal with them to the fullest extent of the law as we have done in all of the recent incidents."

The soldiers of Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and officers with the Shin Bet internal security agency were involved in the manhunt, Netanyahu added.

The injured were a 47-year-old man, who was rushed to hospital in a critical condition, and a man in his 20s, who was seriously wounded and also taken to a hospital, according to a statement from Magen David Adom medical emergency service.

The attacks came amid heightened tensions between Israel and Palestine with two Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank in two separate incidents last week.

The settlements are located on lands which Israel seized during the 1967 Middle East war.

The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in 2014.