Israeli police said six members of the security forces were injured in a shooting attack at a checkpoint near Bethlehem.

Three Palestinians were killed after they allegedly carried out a shooting attack at an Israeli checkpoint near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, as violence increased across the territory.

At least six members of the Israeli security forces were injured in the attack, one of them critically, Israeli police said on Thursday.

After the incident, the Israeli army sealed off all entrances to the Bethlehem governorate in the south of the occupied West Bank, preventing people from entering and leaving the area.

Troops were stationed along roads leading to several surrounding villages and towns.

Israeli police chief Yaakov Shabtai said the suspected gunmen were planning a much larger attack.

At least two of the suspected attackers were among them Hamas According to the Israeli domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet, it was an armed group.

There was no immediate comment from Hamas.

Shabtai told reporters that the three arrived in a vehicle from the direction of Bethlehem and opened fire when Israeli forces there began to interrogate them. They were killed when Israeli forces fired back, he said.

After the shooting, police said they found two automatic rifles, two handguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, 10 fully loaded magazines and two axes on the suspects and in their vehicle.

Footage on social media taken from inside a bus showed a man in uniform running and falling as shots rang out at the checkpoint in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“She [Israeli authorities] They say there is a fourth Palestinian who they believe is involved in the shooting,” Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim said in a report from Ramallah.

“In the hours that followed, we saw Israeli forces raid Hebron because they believed the perpetrators came from there,” she said. “They arrested the families of the three Palestinians.”

Earlier on Thursday, Israeli forces carried out raids across the West Bank, resulting in several arrests.

Witnesses told the Palestinian news agency Wafa that two young men were arrested in the city of Jericho. Two more men were arrested after a separate raid in the village of al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya, south of Nablus.

Tensions in the West Bank have skyrocketed since Hamas carried out a surprise attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.

According to Palestinian health authorities, Israel responded with an air and ground attack on Gaza that has so far killed more than 11,600 people, including at least 4,700 children. It also reduced much of the besieged enclave to rubble.

At least 197 Palestinians, including 48 children, were present killed Attacks by Israeli settlers have killed eight Palestinians and forced more than 1,100 people from their homes, according to the United Nations.

The UN human rights chief expressed concern about “intensifying violence and severe discrimination against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

“This creates a potentially explosive situation,” said Volker Türk in a briefing to UN member states in Geneva.

“I am sounding the loudest alarm bell regarding the occupied West Bank.”