Palestinian, Israeli wounded in West Bank clash

A Palestinian shepherd and an Israeli were both wounded Monday in a clash between troops and stone-throwers near the settlement of Yitzhar in northern West Bank. When the shepherd, from a nearby village, approached the Jewish community, security personnel radioed the army to send forces in order to keep the individual from approaching the security fence, a military source told Xinhua. While Palestinians say they are free to graze herds of sheep and goats throughout open areas in the West Bank, residents of Jewish towns contend that militants exploit the shepherds to surveil their communities in order to plan terror attacks. Soldiers detained the individual after he refused requests to leave the area, while "a number of other Palestinians then began to gather and began throwing stones at the Israelis," the source said. A Yitzhar security officials was lightly injured when he was hit in the head by a rock, Israel Radio said. As the incident progressed, "the forces used non-lethal means of crowd control, and when they saw that events were getting out of hand they opened fire at the feet of the Palestinians," wounding one moderately, according to the army. A Palestinian ambulance evacuated the man to a hospital in nearby Nablus, according to Israeli officials. In a separate incident Monday on a road in the vicinity, Palestinian stone-throwers broke the windshield of an Israeli's vehicle. Tensions have mounted in the past week in the area, as an Israeli border guard shot dead a 17-year-old Palestinian who held an officer at gun-point. Later it was revealed by the IDF probe that the gun was a toy pistol. Several incidents were reported early Friday in which Palestinian hurled stones towards Israeli vehicles near Ma'ale Shomron, the Walla news website reported. No injuries were reported in the incidents, but damages were caused to the vehicles. The recent events in the West Bank have brought up serious considerations about the army's rules of engagement.