Israeli soldier wounded after shooting in Hebron's Old City

A 20-year-old Israeli female soldier was shot and moderately wounded during an attack at a holy site in Hebron's Old City on Sunday afternoon.

The woman, who has not been identified, was reportedly shot in the lower body at the site known to Jews as the Tomb of Patriarchs and to Muslims at the Ibrahimi Mosque and was fully conscious as Israeli military medical staff gave her treatment, a paramedic told Haaretz.

A Palestianian shooter fled the scene after opening fire from afar and hitting the woman in front of the site, Maan News reported.

The soldier was evacuated to Jerusalem's Shaare Tzedek hospital.

The city of Hebron is home to the only city-centre in the West Bank in which Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents live side by side, and it has been a flashpoint for violence.

Thousands of soldiers are deployed in the centre to protect a few hundred settlers, and Palestinian freedom of movement in the city has been severely restricted for years.

In recent weeks, as MEE reported, those restrictions on movement have spread throughout the district.

The shooting comes two days after a gunman killed two Israelis and injured at least seven others in an New Year's Day attack on a crowded bar in Tel Aviv.

A manhunt is still underway for the suspected gunman, identified by police as 31-year-old Nashaat Melhem, a Palestinian citizen living in the northern Israeli town of Arara.