Two Israelis were wounded by bullets, including one seriously, on Sunday in Huwara, a Palestinian town in the north of the occupied West Bank, Magen David Adom (Mada), the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, told AFP on Sunday.
In a statement, the Israeli army said that "a terrorist (had) opened fire on an Israeli vehicle, hitting two civilians" in Huwara.
On the spot, "we found two injured people, one of them in serious condition, with injuries in the upper body and (the other), a woman in a state of panic. We administered first aid to them and evacuated them. in the ambulance," said one of the rescuers, Tomer Fein, in a video released by Mada.
According to the army, the assailant was captured after "soldiers (...) and one of the two wounded civilians (had) responded with live ammunition against (him) and (had) injured him".
This attack comes on the same day of Israeli-Palestinian talks, in the presence of Egyptian, Jordanian and American mediators, in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh.
Without claiming responsibility for the attack, Hamas and Islamic Jihad called it in separate statements -- but with similar language -- as Israel's "normal response to the crimes of the occupation".
The two Palestinian movements have said they oppose talks on Sunday that aim to restore calm a few days before the start of Ramadan, as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been sucked into a new spiral of violence since the beginning of the year. , particularly in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by Israel.
On February 26, while a similar meeting was being held in Aqaba, Jordan, two Israelis, residents of a nearby settlement, were shot dead in an attack on their car in Huwara by a Palestinian gunman, a member of the armed wing of the Islamist movement Hamas.
After the February 26 attack, dozens of Jewish settlers attacked Huwara, burning cars and buildings.
In the aftermath, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called for "annihilating" Huwara. Mr. Smotrich's remarks had aroused indignant reactions in Washington, Paris or at the UN, prompting the far-right minister to concede that he had "poorly chosen" his words.
Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 86 Palestinians (including members of armed groups and civilians, including minors), 12 civilians (including three minors) and one Israeli policeman, as well than a Ukrainian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
03/19/2023 17:30:26 - Huwara (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
