Israeli couple injured in West Bank drive-by shooting

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(JTA) — An Israeli couple, including a man who was jailed in the deadly 1983 shooting on the Islamic College of Hebron, was injured in a drive-by shooting in the West Bank.

Gunmen in a passing car shot at the couple’s vehicle on Wednesday evening near the Avnei Hefetz settlement, the Times of Israel reported.

Haaretz identified the victims as a husband and wife, Shaul and Racheli Nir, both 60.

Shaul Nir, according to Haaretz, was found guilty of perpetrating a 1983 shooting and hand grenade attack on the Islamic College of Hebron that killed three students and wounded 33. He was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the attack and his attempt to assassinate Palestinian officials, but President Chaim Herzog commuted his sentence in 1990, along with those of his two co-conspirators, and ordered his release.

READ: Herzog commutes jail sentences of three Jewish underground members

Shaul Nir was shot in the head; Racheli Nir was lightly injured. They were taken to separate hospitals for treatment.

The attack left 20 bullet holes in the car.

Hours earlier, two Israelis in their 20s were injured in a stabbing attack in Hebron, also in the West Bank. One, a soldier, suffered multiple wounds to his upper body. Israeli security forces shot and killed the assailant, who was Palestinian, according to Israeli reports.

Haaretz reported that one of the injured Israelis is the son of former Jewish Home Knesset member Orit Strock and that the Hebron assailant, Abad a-Rachman Yusori Maswada, is the cousin of a terrorist who stabbed a man in Hebron on Monday.

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