Israel PM vows to ‘settle the score’ with Hamas after 3 police officers killed in West Bank shooting

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday (Sep 1) to “settle the score” with Hamas after the military recovered the bodies of six hostages from a Gaza tunnel and three police officers were shot dead in an attack near the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.
“Those who kill hostages do not want an agreement” for a Gaza truce,” Netanyahu said, telling Hamas leaders that “we will hunt you down, we will catch you and we will settle the score”.
Netanyahu also accused Hamas of carrying out a shooting attack earlier on Sunday near the city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. 
Three police officers, two men and a woman, were killed on Sunday morning in a shooting attack near the Tarqumiya checkpoint, police said.
The Israeli military said the attackers fired at a vehicle at the checkpoint.
“Security forces have begun to search for the terrorists,” it said in a statement.
“We are fighting on all fronts against a cruel enemy who wants to murder us all. Just this morning, he murdered three policemen in Hebron,” Netanyahu said, referring to Hamas.
Hundreds of Israeli troops have been carrying out raids across the West Bank since last Wednesday in one of their largest actions in the area in months, which Israel says is aimed at rooting out Islamist militants.
The operation has drawn international calls for a halt, but Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a hardline member of Israel’s security cabinet, called for more action against Palestinian militants in the West Bank.
“We need to do now what we didn’t do that awful night and launch a pre-emptive strike and strike terrorism hard,” he said, referring to Hamas’ deadly Oct 7 attack on Israel.
“We are committed to eliminating terrorism on all fronts.”
Israel’s ambulance service had initially said two people had been killed and a third critically wounded.
“The fact that Hamas continues to commit atrocities such as those it committed on October 7 obliges us to do everything we can to ensure that it can no longer do so,” said Netanyahu.
Hamas has not claimed the attack in the West Bank, but in a statement called it a “heroic operation by the resistance”.