A SHOOTING IN the northern West Bank town of Huwara today wounded two Israelis, one of them seriously, the army and rescuers said.

The attack came during Israeli-Palestinian talks in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh seeking to restore calm after a surge in deadly violence in the occupied West Bank, including the earlier fatal shooting of two Israelis in Huwara in February.

“A terrorist opened fire toward an Israeli vehicle, hitting two civilians” at a junction in Huwara town, the Israeli army said in a statement.

It said “soldiers and one of the injured civilians responded with live fire toward the terrorist and hit him”.

After initially fleeing the scene, Israeli forces “located the injured terrorist and apprehended him”, the army said.

Tomer Fein, a rescuer from the Magen David Adom emergency response service, said: “We found two injured people, one of them in serious condition, with wounds in the upper body”.

They were treated at the scene and then evacuated by ambulance, Fein said in a video released by the service.

Neither Hamas nor the Islamic Jihad group claimed the attack, but they released similarly-worded statements describing it as a “normal response to the crimes of the occupation”.

The West Bank has been occupied by Israel since the Six-Day War of 1967.

The attack is the latest in spiralling violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has this year claimed the lives of 100 people on both sides.

Since the start of the year, 86 Palestinian militants and civilians, including children, have been killed.

Thirteen Israeli adults and children, including members of the security forces and civilians, and one Ukrainian civilian have been killed over the same period, according to an AFP tally based on official sources from both sides.

– © AFP 2023