An Israeli man was moderately wounded on Tuesday afternoon when Palestinian terrorists fired on the Mitzpe Yosef outpost on Mount Gerizim near Nablus (Shechem) in Samaria, according to reports.
The Israel Defense Forces said troops made their way to the scene.
The Hatzalah Judea and Samaria rescue group announced that it had received a call from a group of civilians who had been visiting Mitzpe Yosef, an ultra-Orthodox outpost near the community of Har Bracha.
“One of them reported feeling an injury to his stomach, apparently from a bullet fired from a distance,” Hatzalah Judea and Samaria stated.
The Kan News public broadcaster identified the victim as a 38-year-old man who was part of a group from the city of Ra’anana, north of Tel Aviv, and had come to the area to visit a scenic lookout point with a view of Nablus.
The victim received medical attention on the spot before being evacuated to Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba for further treatment.
Israel’s Army Radio reported that he suffered a gunshot wound to his shoulder but was conscious. Security forces were said to be investigating the possibility that the shot was fired by a sniper from the direction of Nablus, according to the report.
Israeli forces reportedly entered Nablus, which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority, to search for terrorists, Army Radio reported.
In a statement following the attack, Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan called on Jerusalem to launch an “all-out campaign against the terror infrastructures of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.”
“There is no real difference between the Nazi Hamas terrorists and the Nazi terrorists from Fatah,” Dagan said of P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling faction. “Hamas are Nazi terrorists with a green headband, and the Palestinian Authority and Fatah are Nazi terrorists in suits.”
“The government of Israel and the security establishment must understand: We are at war in the north, in the south, and also in Judea and Samaria,” added the local leader.
Judea and Samaria saw a dramatic rise in Palestinian terrorist attacks in 2023 compared to the previous year, with shootings reaching their highest level since the Second Intifada of 2000-05, per IDF data.
In late May, two IDF soldiers were killed in a vehicular assault outside Nablus. The terrorist reportedly turned himself in to Palestinian Authority police but was not handed over to Israel, instead being released from custody and moved into hiding by P.A. officials.
