Guard kills 2 Palestinians who stabbed Israeli women in store

Two Palestinians were shot dead after stabbing Israeli women in a West Bank minimarket on Monday, according to Israeli police.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the assailants entered the shop in Beit Horon, a Jewish settlement northwest of Jerusalem, and began stabbing Israelis inside. A security guard fatally shot the attackers outside the store, he said.

Two Israeli women were wounded in the attack, one critically, Rosenfeld said. He said Israeli police found two homemade bombs in the vicinity of the store.

The last four months have seen near-daily Palestinian attacks that have killed 25 Israelis and an American student. At least 149 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, 104 of them identified by Israel as attackers. The rest have been killed in clashes with Israeli troops.

Last week there were attacks in two West Bank settlements. In Otniel, a Palestinian teen fatally stabbed Israeli mother of six Dafna Meir in her home and was later arrested. A second Palestinian teen stabbed a pregnant Israeli woman in a supermarket in Tekoa, and was also arrested.

Israel blames the violence on Palestinian incitement. Palestinians say the attacks stem from frustration at nearly five decades of Israeli military rule.

Earlier Monday, the Israeli military said it fired an aerial strike at a Hamas military training facility in the Gaza Strip in response to rocket fire from the territory. No injuries were reported.

The Gaza frontier has been largely quiet since Israel and Hamas fought a 50-day war in 2014 that killed more than 2,200 Palestinians and 73 people on the Israeli side. Still, rockets are launched occasionally from the territory, and Israel typically responds with airstrikes.

Several Gazans have been killed in clashes with Israeli troops during the current outburst of Israeli-Palestinian violence.