Two Israeli soldiers wounded in West Bank shootings

Jerusalem: Two Israeli soldiers, one a woman, were wounded on Sunday in separate shootings in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, the army said.

The young woman was seriously wounded when a gunman opened fire on her, and she was evacuated to Jerusalem's Shaare Tzedek hospital, as army statement said.

The shooting happened near a disputed holy site in the heart of Hebron's Old City, which is known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque and to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs.

Three hours later, another gunman opened fire on an army patrol in southern Hebron, slightly wounding a soldier, the army said, adding that the unknown assailant fled after the attack.

Some 500 Jewish settlers live under tight guard among around 200,000 Palestinians in the southern West Bank city, where several anti-Israel attacks have been carried out in the past weeks.

Today's shootings come amid a wave of violence since the beginning of October last year that has killed 138 Palestinians and 20 Israelis.