RAMALLAH (Dispatches) -- A shooting at an Israeli military bus l in the occupied West Bank on Sunday left at least six soldiers and one driver wounded, according to the Zionist army.
The army arrested two Palestinians in connection with the incident, it said in a statement.
Zionist forces said armed men opened fire from a truck at the bus driving on a major highway in the northern part of the Jordan Valley, near the settlement of Hamra.
One soldier was seriously wounded with gunshot injuries and was transferred by helicopter to Rambam Hospital in Haifa for treatment. The other five soldiers and the driver were lightly wounded, according to army officials and medics.
Two suspects were later arrested in connection with the incident after their vehicle caught fire while escaping. According to the army, the fire may have been caused by a mistakenly ignited Molotov cocktail, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
A third suspect reportedly managed to flee, and a manhunt has been launched to capture him.
Footage from the scene showed the windscreen of the targeted bus pierced with multiple bullets.
A spokesperson of the Hamas movement commended the shooting as a response to the “Zionist occupier and their settlers’ crimes and aggression against Al-Aqsa Mosque and prisoners”.
“We salute those revolutionary youth, who carried out this special operation, thus highlighting our people’s ability to continue resistance across the West Bank,” Hamas spokesman Abdul-Latif Qanu said.
The occupied West Bank has witnessed a rise in Palestinian armed attacks against Israeli targets this year.
Last month, unknown gunmen shot at a bus carrying Zionist settlers in Silwad, near Ramallah.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad resistance movements on Saturday lauded as heroic a stabbing operation carried out by a young Palestinian, who was fatally shot by Zionist forces in the occupied West bank city of Al-Khalil.
Fadi Muhammad Ghattas was shot dead on Friday evening after Israeli troops opened fire on the 19-year-old Palestinian over a stabbing attack at the entrance to the village of Beit Einun, five kilometers northeast of Al-Khalil.
The operation, which took place near the Zionist settlement of Kiryat Arba, left one of the occupying regime’s forces seriously injured.
The operation represents a “blessed extension of the burning flame of resistance” in the cities and villages of the occupied West