By Al Ahed Staff, Agencies
An unidentified shooter has carried out two shooting operations against Zionist settlers near the occupied West Bank city of Ariha.
According to Zionist media, one settler was killed in the first operation on Monday, while the second shooting left several others injured, some of them “in critical condition.”
The casualties took place after the unidentified shooter opened fire at the cars of the settlers in Beit Ha’arava junction near Ariha.
Palestinian Shehab news agency said in a thread of tweets that the two shootings were carried out by an armed Palestinian man.
"The Palestinian opened fire at a vehicle near Ariha, wounding a settler very critically, and during his withdrawal, he came across another vehicle, so he opened fire at it and continued his withdrawal from the place,” the news agency added.
‘Israeli’ media said the second operation near Jericho “left 4 injuries, some of them critical,” adding, "The perpetrator of the Jericho attack abandoned his car and set it on fire before retreating.”
Some ‘Israeli’ media reports said the shooter had carried out three attacks at three different locations before getting away.
The Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth had earlier reported that a 25-year-old ‘Israeli’ was “seriously wounded” when he was shot in his vehicle near Ariha.
The roads leading to Ariha were closed as ‘Israeli’ occupation forces launched a manhunt operation for the Palestinian perpetrator.
The Islamic Jihad resistance movement hailed the operation, saying that resistance against ‘Israeli’ forces and settlers will continue, and the enemy will pay the price for all its crimes.
The retaliatory operation came a day after 37-year-old Sameh Hamdallah Mahmoud Aqtash was martyred after being hit with a live bullet fired during an assault by Zionist settlers in a village near the city of Nablus in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
Hundreds of Palestinians were also injured during attacks by ‘Israeli’ settlers and troops in Nablus area towns and villages on the same day.
Aqtash's murder took the number of the Palestinians martyred at the hands of ‘Israeli’ occupation forces and settlers since the beginning of the year to 66, including four who were killed by ‘Israeli’ settlers' gunfire, 13 children, four elderly people, and one prisoner.
At least 21 of the fatalities were caused during two separate mass raids carried out by the ‘Israeli’ troops on the cities of Nablus and Jenin, both in the northern part of the West Bank, earlier this year.
The Zionist regime's settlers and forces have escalated their attacks on Palestinians since late December 2022, when Benjamin Netanyahu staged a comeback as the regime's prime minister at the head of a cabinet of hard-right and extremist parties to expand the regime’s settlement construction policies.
More than 600,000 Zionist settlers occupy more than 230 settlements built since the 1967 ‘Israeli’ occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
The international community views the settlements – hundreds of which have been built across the West Bank since Tel Aviv’s occupation of the territory in 1967 – as illegal under international law and the Geneva Conventions due to their construction on the occupied territories.
The UN Security Council has condemned the Zionist settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions. The Palestinians have historically demanded that the West Bank serve as part of their future state with East al-Quds, which is located inside the territory, as its capital.
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