Two Jewish shepherds were wounded when Arab rioters attacked them with stones and clubs in the Jordan Valley on Thursday, the Hatzalah Judea and Samaria rescue NGO said.
The shepherds were attacked near a farming outpost between Moshav Ro’i and nearby Moshav Beka’ot, according to the Israeli organization.
Paramedics of Israel’s Magen David Adom medical emergency response group evacuated the moderately wounded victim, 16, to Afula’s HaEmek Medical Center with head and chest injuries. The second victim of the attack was mildly injured and received treatment at the scene.
Israel’s Ynet news outlet reported that security forces were rushed to the scene and launched an exhaustive search for the perpetrators of the terror attack.
According to figures collected by authorities, Palestinian aggression against Jewish shepherds in Judea and Samaria has been on the rise.
“Jewish farmers are grazing their sheep in open areas; Arabs don’t like that, even if it happens in Area C [of Judea and Samaria, where Israeli civilian communities are located]. They’re trying to stop them by using violence,” a local official from Judea and Samaria told JNS in mid-2023.
On March 13, an Arab mob lightly wounded a Jewish shepherd near the Israeli community of Ma’ale Amos in the Gush Etzion region of Judea.
According to reports, the 18-year-old Israeli resident of Mikne Avraham, a herding outpost outside Ma’ale Amos, was alone in the pasture when he was attacked by some six Palestinians armed with clubs and rocks.
Magen David Adom paramedics provided treatment at the scene and evacuated the victim to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Hospital with a minor head wound, according to a Hebrew-language statement from MDA.
The previous month, Israeli security forces arrested two Palestinians suspected of having wounded Israeli shepherds in southern Samaria.
In the Feb. 22 terrorist attack, several Palestinians armed with clubs, knives and rocks attacked two Jewish shepherds in a pasture in the Michmash area before fleeing toward the village of Deir Dibwan.