Suspected Palestinian gunmen shot and killed an Israeli merchant who stopped his car near the entrance to a West Bank village on Sunday, Israeli police said.

The Israeli man "was parked near a factory for concrete blocks on the very border," between Israel and the West Bank, assistant police commander Dov Lutsky told Israel radio.
Lutsky said that a preliminary investigation showed the Israeli man likely came to the area - situated between the northern Israeli community Kibbutz Magal and the Palestinian village Zeita in the West Bank - for a business deal.

"It appears we are talking about a deal going on...and someone took advantage of the opportunity to attack this man," he said, without specifying the transaction involved. An Israeli police spokesman said the investigation was at an early stage but "our main direction for the inquiry is that it was an attack on nationalistic grounds", referring to attacks carried out by Palestinians in their 11-month-old uprising.

Israeli media reported the man was hit in a drive-by shooting and that Israeli forces were searching for the gunmen. Palestinian witnesses said Israeli troops imposed a curfew on Zeita.