A shooting attack occurred on Sunday morning in the Shomron when Arabs opened fire on a school bus and a taxi between Alon Moreh and the PA town of Beit Furik, near Shechem.

A bullet hit the windshield of the bus, which was full of children, but b’chasdei Hashem, no one was injured.

An Israeli taxi driver in his 40s who was on his way to pick up special needs children and transport them to school was lightly injured after a bullet grazed his shoulder. He managed to continue driving to a nearby army base and was treated by IDF medics.

The taxi driver, a father of six, later said that it was a neis that the bulletproof bus protected him by allowing him to pass. He added that there are usually IDF soldiers stationed near the area where the attack occurred but they weren’t there on Sunday morning when the attack occurred. “The government is forsaking us,” he said.

A video of the attack on the bus, which was recorded from afar by Palestinians, can be seen below:

Security officials from the Shomron Regional Council and IDF soldiers rushed to the scene and launched a manhunt for the terrorists, closing nearby checkpoints. IDF soldiers who entered the village of Beit Furik to search for suspects came under live fire by local Arabs.

The “Lion’s Den” terror squad, which operates in the Shechem area and has claimed responsibility for many attacks in recent weeks, claimed responsibility for Sunday’s attack, stating that “we located a bus of settlers near the Alon Moreh checkpoint and then shot at it. Our operatives retreated safely.”

“Another serious incident that ended almost miraculously,” said Yossi Dagan, the head of the Shomron Regional Council. “This government is abandoning its residents to a terror wave fueled by the Palestinian Authority. This government refuses to recognize reality, refuses to launch Operation Protective Wall 2, refuses to confiscate weapons, refuses to return the checkpoints.”

“We see terror attack after terror attack. The writing is on the wall and it’s bloody. There are shooting incidents and injured people here day after day. I call on the government to come to its senses and announce a widespread operation to thwart the terrorist infrastructure in Yehudah and Shomron. Stop abandoning the residents of the Shomron and the rest of Israel to this wave of terror.”

Religious Zionist Party chairman Betzalel Smotrich responded to the attack by stating: “Under the auspices of a transitional prime minister who resumes discussion of a Palestinian state and a failed defense minister who is a prisoner of the Oslo concept, a dangerous security escalation has been taking place in Yehudah and Shomron in recent months on a scale not seen for many years. We’re amid a third intifada. The residents of the yishuvim are returning to a situation in which their lives are hefker.”

“Gantz and Lapid are tying the hands of the IDF and refusing to allow it to launch a large-scale operation to restore security and eradicate terrorism in northern Shomron. Soon, b’ezrat Hashem, a national government will be established that will protect the lives of the citizens of Israel and restore security and national pride,” he asserted.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)