Over the weekend, the IDF scoured the West Bank for the Palestinian terrorist that moderately injured one 18-year-old hesder yeshiva student when he fired at the Carmel settlement in the South Hebron Hills the night before.
It was the second significant terror attack in the West Bank involving Israeli civilians in the last two weeks and comes amid a spike in such incidents.
Seven Israelis were injured when terrorists fired on a bus in the Jordan Valley.
On Thursday, at least one Palestinian shooter fired at the settlement from an open area near Carmel, hitting a pre-army religious seminary for young men called Reuta, also known as a hesder yeshiva.
The bullets pierced the door, hitting a student and startling the room’s occupants, who had not understood until that moment that they were under attack.
'We didn't realize we were in a shooting incident'
The yeshiva’s Rabbi Natan Ofner explained to KAN News that he and others were studying in the building when they heard a very loud noise.
When one of the room’s occupants went out to check what was going on, “we didn’t see anything. Then we heard another noise. In hindsight, we realized it was gunshots that hit the door of the women’s section,” Ofner said.At the time, Ofner said, the group thought something had fallen. He and a student went to investigate and returned because everything seemed fine.
Then, they heard three “very loud explosions” that sounded very close, followed by a volley of gunfire that penetrated the door near where they were standing.
“We still didn’t realize that we were in a shooting incident [until] the student saw he was soaked in blood, then everyone realized what was going on.”
The students entered a protected space and “we called the army, which arrived quickly,” Ofner said.In the meantime, the shooting continued until the army arrived, he added.
The student was taken to a hospital, where he underwent surgery to remove the bullet fragments and Ofner said he was expected to recover quickly.
Separately. the Jerusalem coordinator for the Religious Zionist Party Elhanan Wolff who was driving in the area said his vehicle was hit by the same gunfire, but that he was unscathed. The shooter was using an automatic rifle, he said.
Immediately after the attack, residents of the small Carmel settlement were asked to stay in their homes. Earlier this week Maj. Bar Falah, 30, was killed as he stopped armed Palestinians from infiltrating into sovereign Israel through the security barrier.