Two Israeli police officers were killed in a "terrorist" incident in the northern city of Hadera on Sunday, according to police and medics.
The incident occurs as four Arab foreign ministers and the US secretary of state convene in southern Israel for an unprecedented regional session.
"Two terrorists arrived at Herbert Samuel Street in Hadera and began firing at a police force there," police stated, adding that two people were killed.
Police claimed in a statement that members of "an Israeli counterterrorism team happened to be in a neighboring restaurant and ran out and neutralized the terrorists."
The two victims of the incident, according to Dudu Boani, the region's police deputy commander, were police officers.
According to him, the assailants were shot and killed.
"Two Israelis," a man and a woman, were murdered in the incident, according to Magen David Adom emergency medical responders, with four others brought to the hospital and two more treated on the spot.
Police had deployed aggressively in the Arab Israeli city of Umm El Fahm, near Hadera, according to residents.
The two assailants were Islamic State group agents from Umm El Fahm, according to an Israeli security official.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett arrived in Hadera and was briefed by police on the attack, according to his office. Defence Minister Benny Gantz was conducting a situation assessment with military, police, and intelligence officers, according to his office.
In a statement, the army claimed it was sending more troops in and around the occupied West Bank.
The attack was praised by Hamas, the Islamist movement that administers Gaza, which called it a "heroic action" and a "natural and appropriate response" to Israel's "crimes against our people."
Another militant Palestinian group based in Gaza, Islamic Jihad, praised the bombing "an eloquent statement from our people against attempts to break our spirit."
A man holding a knife stabbed several people and ran over another in southern Israel on Tuesday, killing four people in one of the country's bloodiest incidents in recent years.
The attacker was identified as an Israeli Arab who had previously been convicted of supporting the Islamic State.
At the time of the incident on Sunday, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid was entertaining his colleagues from three Arab states that had recently normalized relations with Israel, as well as Egypt's top diplomat and the US secretary of state, at a resort in southern Israel in a "historic" event.
In a statement, Lapid said, "I updated the participants of the Negev Summit on the details of the Hadera incident."
"All foreign ministers denounced the incident, expressed condolences to the dead' families, and wished the wounded a swift recovery."
"Tonight's horrible terror incident is a violent extremist attempt to terrorize and undermine the fabric of life here," Lapid stated.
"Israel will battle terrorism with zeal, and we will stay firm with our allies."
