Shilo, West Bank – A gunman opened fire at a group of Israelis near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Monday, the Israeli military said, in a suspected Palestinian drive-by attack.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
A spokesman for Israel’s ambulance service Magen David Adom said medics were treating four people in their twenties, one of them badly wounded. A military spokesman said forces were searching the area for suspected Palestinian assailants.
There has been an uptick of violence in the area in recent weeks.
Earlier on Monday, police said a Palestinian woman stabbed and wounded an Israeli soldier at a crossing between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. On Friday Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian gunman in the West Bank after he opened fire on them at a checkpoint.
Earlier this month a Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli paramilitary policeman outside the walled Old City of Jerusalem. The policeman shot back and wounded him and in the West Bank a suspected Palestinian gunman shot at two Israeli hikers and killed one. The assailant escaped.
Palestinian militants this month have fired rockets into Israel from Gaza, drawing Israeli return fire. That frontier has been largely quiet since the Gaza war last year in which more than 2,100 Palestinians and 73 on the Israeli side were killed.
Palestinians seek a state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war. The last round of peace talks between the sides broke down in April 2014.
The holy time of ramadan brings out the religious motivation to kill non believers and heretics .