JERUSALEM: An Israeli woman was killed in a suspected Palestinian shooting attack near the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Monday, the Israeli military said.

Israel’s ambulance service said an Israeli man who was also seriously wounded in the incident was transferred to hospital and that a 6-year-old who was in the car was “miraculously unharmed.”

The military said in a statement it had set up roadblocks and was searching for the suspects, who it said fired from a passing vehicle.

A spokesperson for the Islamist Hamas group that governs blockaded Gaza, Hazem Qassem, praised the attack and said it was a response to Israel’s ongoing assaults on Palestinians.

Violence in the West Bank has surged over the past 15 months with stepped up military raids, Israeli settler rampages, and Palestinian street attacks.

US-brokered peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, collapsed in 2014 and show no sign of revival.

Israel captured those territories in the 1967 Middle East war. Its growing settlements in the West Bank, where Palestinian have limited self-rule, are considered by most countries as illegal, a view that Israel disputes.