Israeli soldiers conduct a search for Palestinian suspects of a terror attack yesterday in the West Bank City of Ramallah, December 10, 2018. 6 Israelis were injured in the drive-by shooting attack, near Ofra. December 10, 2018. Photo: FLASH90.

JNS.org – A Palestinian man infiltrated an IDF army post outside the town of Beit El in southern Samaria on Friday morning, bashing the head of an Israeli soldier with a rock and seriously injuring him before fleeing to a nearby Arab enclave.

According to Israel Defense Forces reports, the terrorist broke into the position, just outside Ramallah. A fight ensued between the infiltrator and a soldier, during which the attacker smashed his head with a rock. The 21-year-old soldier was evacuated to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in serious condition, unconscious and hooked up to a ventilator. Doctors said his condition was life-threatening.

The attack took place just a few miles from a shooting attack Thursday at a bus stop near Givat Asaf junction, which claimed the lives of two IDF soldiers and seriously injured two additional people, as well as a drive-by shooting at a bus stop outside Ofra Sunday, which seriously injured seven and claimed the life of a baby whose pregnant mother was shot.

There is now a manhunt underway for the attacker, as well as for several Palestinians from the attacks of the previous week.

Late Wednesday night, Israeli security forces killed Salih Omar Barghouti, who was wanted for the shooting outside Ofra, as well as Ashraf Walid Suleiman Na’alwa, who killed two Israelis in October at the Barkan industrial zone. Hamas later claimed Barghouti as a member of its terror organization, and called his attack on the Ofra commuters’ post “heroic.”

Security forces arrested an additional 40 Palestinians in connection with the recent attacks and for subsequent riots overnight Friday. According to the IDF, 37 of them are Hamas operatives.