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Ronen Zvulun/REUTERS
An Israeli border policeman (L) guards near to the car (R) of a Palestinian attacker at the scene close to the West Bank Jewish settlement of Alon Shvut November 19, 2015.
An Israeli police commander earlier said that a Palestinian drove along the shoulder of the main road near the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the West Bank and shot at crawling traffic, killing three people and wounding others.
Jewish Agency spokesperson Avi Mayer $4 that the American, Ezra Schwartz, was a participant in Masa, a program that provides funding for study abroad and gap year programs in Israel.
$4 the Israeli newspaper HaAretz, Schwartz had been studying at a yeshiva, or a Jewish religious academy, outside of Jerusalem during a post-high school gap year.
The shooting took place in the Gush Etzion settlement block, a group of communities that lies inside the West Bank and beyond Israel's internationally recognized borders in the mountains just south of Jerusalem.