HEBRON: Two Palestinians were shot and wounded, one of them critically, in an altercation with settlers near the southern West Bank town of Hebron on Friday, Palestinian medics said.
Israeli police confirmed an incident involving Palestinians and a group of Israelis near the village of Beit Umar, north of Hebron.
"We received a report of an incident that took place there between a group of Palestinians and Israelis," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP.
"Apparently shots were fired as a result of the incident. One Palestinian teenager has been taken to the hospital in serious condition and the situation is continuing to be investigated."
Palestinian medical sources named those wounded in the incident as relatives 17-year-old Yusef Ikhlil and 19-year-old Murad Ikhlil.
Yusef Ikhlil was on life support after being shot in the head, sources at Al-Ahly hospital in Hebron told AFP. Murad Ikhlil was admitted to the same hospital with a gunshot wound to an arm.
Settler sources told AFP the clashes erupted between Palestinians and settlers from the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba after they entered an Arab area, Beit Umar.
The sources said Palestinians began throwing stones at the settlers and opened fire on them before they returned fire, injuring the two Palestinians.
Police could not confirm the account.
The settler group involved in the incident regularly enters Arab areas near the settlement.
Malachi Levinger, Kiryat Arba's mayor, told AFP the settlers involved in the incident were acting in self-defence, and stressed "the right of Jews to walk freely in their country."
Police and the Israeli military said that they deployed large numbers of forces to the scene immediately after the incident, and Israeli commanders later met local Palestinian leaders.
"In light of the incident this morning, the commander of Judea and Samaria Brigade and the head of the Civil Administration are now meeting with the head of the Beit Umar municipality and other senior figures in order to calm things down," a military spokeswoman said.
"The officers are explaining that security forces are making every effort to investigate the incident."
On Thursday, a Palestinian man was shot dead by a settler near the northern West Bank city of Nablus. Hospital officials identified him as Uday Maher Qadous, 18, from the village of Iraq Burin southwest of Nablus.
His cousin, who was with him at the time of the shooting, said a group of four settlers on a nearby hilltop opened fire on them, hitting Qadous in the chest.
Israeli police said they were investigating the incident and that Qadous was shot after Palestinians began throwing stones at nearby settlers.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.