Militants Shoot Two Israeli Women.

By David Gollust (VOA-Jerusalem)

Two Israeli women have been shot and wounded in an attack blamed on Palestinian militants in the divided West Bank city of Hebron. The city -- where 400 Jewish settlers live amid 100,000 Palestinians -- has long been a flashpoint for violence.

Gunmen firing from an alley sprayed a van carrying Jewish settlers with bullets as it drove through the part of central Hebron controlled by Israel. One of the women was seriously hurt while the other sustained a minor injury. The attack was condemned by the spokesman for Hebron-area settlers, David Wilder. He blamed lax security by Israeli troops and insisted the shooting was not an act of random anti-Israel violence: "I'm sure that these terrorist attacks do not take place without permission from the highest sources in the Palestinian Authority."

Israel sealed-off all traffic to Hebron and imposed a curfew in the city center, where two young Palestinians were later hurt by rubber-coated metal bullets in a stone-throwing clash with Israeli troops.