Shooting attack injures 4 Israelis near West Bank settlement

JERUSALEM - Four Israelis were wounded, one seriously, after a vehicle was shot at on a road near the illegal Israeli settlement of Shvut Rachel in the West Bank late Monday, Israeli security sources said.

The injured, all of them men in their 20s, were taken to Israeli hospitals. According to the Israeli news site Ynet, the four sustained bullet wounds in their upper and lower bodies.

One of them was in serious condition, the security sources said.

The Israeli army erected checkpoints in the area, and a number of Israeli troops and special forces were sent to search the area.

The shots were fired at a crossroads near the settlement in the north of the West Bank.

Dozens of Israeli soldiers raided the nearby town of Qaryout and imposed a curfew, the Palestinian news agency Ma'an reported.

Soldiers set up a checkpoint on the road to Nablus, the Ma'an report said.

The shooting came amid a string of attacks against the Israeli military and setters in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Earlier Monday, a Palestinian woman was arrested after stabbing an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint in Bethlehem. On 21 June, another Palestinian was shot after stabbing an Israeli border policeman in East Jerusalem.

"I call on the government to authorise the army to act without pity against these savages who take civilians for targets," he said.

The Israeli military has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. Over 500,000 Israeli settlers now live in the Palestinian territories, in contravention of international law.