Two British-Israeli women killed in West Bank shooting

Two British-Israeli sisters have been killed and their mother has been injured in a shooting in the occupied West Bank.

They were in a car that crashed after being shot at near the Hamra Junction, in the north of the Jordan Valley.

The mayor of the settlement of Efrat said the sisters, who were in their 20s, and their 48-year-old mother lived there and were immigrants from the UK.

The UK Foreign Office said it was "saddened" by the news.

"We are saddened to hear about the deaths of two British-Israeli citizens and the serious injuries sustained by a third individual," a statement said.

The Israeli military said its forces were blocking roads in the area and had "started a pursuit of the terrorists".

The shooting took place hours after Israeli warplanes carried out air strikes in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip.

The military said they were in retaliation for the biggest rocket attack on Israel launched from Lebanon for 17 years, which it blamed on the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

The rocket barrage followed two nights of Israeli police raids at the al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem that caused anger across the region.

Later on Friday, Israel said one person had died and several others had been injured in a separate shooting incident in Tel Aviv.

The Israel military said the earlier incident in the Jordan Valley was initially reported as a collision between an Israeli car and a Palestinian car. But when troops arrived they found several bullet holes in the Israeli vehicle and determined that it was an attack.

Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported that 22 bullet casings were found, apparently from a Kalashnikov assault rifle.

A volunteer medic with the United Hatzalah ambulance service said he rushed to the scene and found the three victims in a critical condition.

"Together with other first responders, I performed CPR on the injured in an attempt to save their lives," Oded Shabbat said. "One injured person was transported by helicopter to the hospital for further care."

The Efrat Local Council said in a Facebook post that the three women were a mother and her two daughters who lived in the West Bank settlement, which is south of Jerusalem. It added that it was not yet permitted to identify them.

The mayor of Efrat, Oded Revivi, said the family were immigrants from the UK, originally from London, and that they were travelling to Tiberias, located on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, for a holiday when the attack happened.

Israeli media also cited Mr Revivi as saying that the sisters' father had been driving ahead of them in another car when theirs was attacked. He reportedly turned around and arrived at the scene to find his wife and daughters being treated by paramedics.

The head of the Israeli military's Central Command, which oversees the West Bank, called it an "extremely severe terrorist attack" and promised that its troops knew how to find those responsible.

"We are reinforcing forces in all sectors. We were unable to prevent this attack, but we will do everything we can to prevent the following attacks," Maj-Gen Yehuda Fuchs added.

Israel Police commissioner Kobi Shabtai meanwhile called on all Israelis with firearms licences to start carrying their weapons.

"This is a murderous attack that reminds us how relevant the threat of terrorism in its various forms is," he said.

Hamas did not claim it was behind the shooting but praised it as "a natural response to [Israel's] ongoing crimes against the al-Aqsa mosque and its barbaric aggression against Lebanon and the steadfast Gaza".

There has been an intensification of violence between Israel and the Palestinians since the start of this year.

More than 90 Palestinians - militants and civilians - have been killed by Israeli forces. If those behind Friday's shooting are confirmed to be Palestinian, then 17 Israelis and a Ukrainian - all civilians, except for an Israeli paramilitary police officer - have been killed in Palestinian attacks.