Israelis hurt in West Bank crash 'after stones thrown'

A two-year-old Israeli girl was seriously injured on Thursday after she, her two sisters and their mother were in a West Bank car crash police said was apparently caused by stone-throwing Palestinians. The accident took place near the Jewish settlement of Ariel in the northern West Bank. "The mother, who was driving on a road near Ariel, was moderately injured, as were two of her daughters, after their car collided with a truck, probably because it had been stoned," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP. "Her third daughter, who is two years old, is gravely injured in hospital," he said, adding that an investigation into the crash had begun. "But it is highly likely that the accident was caused by stone-throwing, because the truck's windscreen was smashed and several stones were found on the road," he said. Elsewhere in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian was shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers after he threw petrol bombs at a military post near the town of Tulkarem, military sources said. "Two Palestinians threw firebombs at a military post near Tulkarem. The soldiers opened fire, hitting one Palestinian," an army spokeswoman said. Tensions have been increasing in the Israeli-occupied West Bank with clashes on the rise between soldiers or settlers on the one hand and young Palestinians on the other.