(Tubas) Six Israeli soldiers and a civilian were injured Sunday in an attack on a bus traveling in the northern West Bank, the Israeli army said, amid heightened tensions in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Posted at 1:48 p.m.
According to an Israeli army spokesman, three men – two from Jenin (West Bank) and an Israeli Arab – carried out the attack on a civilian bus used to transport new military recruits.
Two of the suspects were arrested shortly after the attack near the town of Tubas in the Jordan Valley, said the Israeli army, which controls most of the valley.
The two suspects were detained near the charred remains of the vehicle they allegedly used and guns lay on the ground nearby.
The army spokesman said the pick-up truck had “caused fire, probably from a Molotov cocktail that was on the vehicle”, adding that the two arrested suspects were being treated for burns.
The windshield of the bus targeted in the attack was riddled with around 40 bullet holes and a shattered window on the side, AFP noted.
On an unpaved road near the targeted bus, Israeli forces surrounded a charred pick-up believed to belong to the perpetrators of the attack.
According to the Israeli army, a seriously injured soldier is currently in stable condition, while five other soldiers and a civilian suffered minor injuries.
The Magen David Adom (Mada), Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross, said two wounded gunshot wounds had been transferred to a hospital in the Israeli coastal city of Haifa. Three others, injured by “shards of glass”, were hospitalized in northern Israel.
“Very volatile situation”
This attack, not immediately claimed, was welcomed by the Islamist movement Hamas in power in the Gaza Strip, Palestinian territory under Israeli blockade geographically and politically separated from the occupied West Bank.
It comes in a context of heightened tensions in the West Bank, where the Israeli army has stepped up operations in the wake of a series of anti-Israeli attacks from March, concentrating its raids in the north of this territory which it occupied since 1967.
These operations, which take place in particular in the regions of Nablus and Jenin, where Palestinian armed groups are active, are intended to arrest suspects, according to her. They are frequently interspersed with clashes with the inhabitants.
On Friday, a Palestinian man was killed by an Israeli soldier after he stabbed and wounded another soldier at a military post near Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank.
On Tuesday, four Palestinians and two Israelis were injured in two incidents in the area of Nablus, the largest city in the northern West Bank.
The situation in the West Bank is “currently very volatile”, the Israeli military spokesman said.
On August 14, a Palestinian from Jerusalem fired at an Israeli bus in the area of the Holy City annexed by Israel, injuring eight people near the Old City.