16-year-old Israeli boy badly hurt in Hebron shooting attack

Two Israeli teens were hurt Friday evening in a shooting attack near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron.

One of the two, a 16-year-old, was seriously hurt and the other, aged 18, sustained light injuries. The younger teen was hit by gunfire in the upper body. He was taken to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem, Channel 2 reported.

Maariv said both of the victims were conscious at the scene of the attack.

The gunfire apparently came from the direction of the Abu Sneina neighborhood of the divided city, targeting worshipers as they emerged from the tomb. The IDF said around 4,000 Jewish worshipers were visiting the holy site as part of a religious pilgrimage.

Large numbers of IDF troops were deployed to the Palestinian neighborhoods surrounding the Jewish settlement in Hebron to search for the cell behind the attack, the Ynet news website reported.

The attack is the third on Israelis by Palestinian terrorists in one day. A man in his 40s was seriously wounded Friday afternoon when he was stabbed in a West Bank industrial park north of Jerusalem. The terrorist fled the scene.

Minutes earlier, a Palestinian woman in her 70s tried to drive her car into a group of IDF soldiers near Hebron, but was shot by troops at the scene. None of the soldiers were injured in the attack at Halhul Junction, site of a similar attack earlier this week.