Two US tourists lightly hurt as stones thrown at bus in West Bank

Two American tourists were lightly injured Wednesday when assailants threw stones and a paint bottle at a tour bus near the West Bank village of Burqa, east of Ramallah, the Israel Defense Forces said.

The IDF said that the injured women received medical treatment at the scene.

Military and police forces said they arrived quickly and launched a manhunt for the attackers.

Security forces closed all stores in Burqa during the operation, Hebrew media reported.

The IDF statement did not say where the bus was heading. Burqa lies close to the West Bank settlement outpost of Homesh. The area has seen numerous violent clashes between residents of both communities.

Tensions have been high in the West Bank since October 7, 2023, when the Hamas terror group led a devastating invasion of southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, triggering the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.

Since the attack, troops have arrested some 6,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,350 affiliated with Hamas.

According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 900 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops, or terrorists carrying out attacks.

During the same period, 51 people, including Israeli security personnel, were killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another eight members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.