Three Palestinians were wounded in two separate incidents in the West Bank on Monday, Judea and Samaria police said.
According to spokesman Gil Elhaded, police received an initial report shortly before midday of shots having been fired at two Palestinians who allegedly threw rocks at Israeli vehicles. Elhaded said an Israeli motorist targeted by the rocks had fired the shots.
RELATED:Palestinians accuse settlers of further 'price tag' attackYa’alon: W. Bank building must return to former paceNetanyahu condemns settlers’ ‘price tag’ violenceThe driver reported the incident and was set to be questioned over the incident.
The two Palestinians were lightly injured by the gunfire and evacuated to a Palestinian hospital.
The Palestinian Authority’s Government Media Center in the office of Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, however, issued a very different take, saying Ahmad Abu Safiyeh, 60, from Nuba, had been shot in the right side of his chest and was in critical condition, and that Eyad Bassam Za’aqiq, 35, from Beit Ummar, was in stable condition after being shot in the thigh.
According to the media center, they had been walking in a funeral procession when they were shot.
Sarit Michaeli of the rights organization B’Tselem said that according to witnesses interviewed by the group, stones had indeed been thrown at Israeli vehicles on that road, but not by the victims of the shooting, who were taking part in a funeral.
Michaeli added, however, that these were preliminary reports, and the full details of the incident were still unknown.
Earlier on Monday, police received a report that a Palestinian man had
been very lightly injured when a masked man stabbed him in the chest
near Hirbat Atawani, near the Ma’on settlement and the Mitzpe Avigail
outpost.
“The stabbing victim told us a Jewish suspect assaulted him and fled the area. We have launched an investigation,” Elhadad said.
According to the PA Government Media Center, the man, Mahmoud Ibrahim
Awad, 33, had been stabbed in the chest, head and left arm, and
underwent surgery at the Alia hospital in Hebron. The wound to his chest
was considered “severe,” the center said, adding that according to
family sources, Awad was riding his donkey toward Yatta to receive
medical treatment for a kidney ailment when he was attacked.
Awad is married and has two children, the center added. It blamed
settlers for the violence and added that it held the Israeli government
responsible.
There is a long history of tensions between Palestinians and settlers in the South Hebron Hills area, according to B’tselem.