Israeli troops shoot and injure 22-year-old man in Hebron

Israeli forces Wednesday morning shot and injured a Palestinian man, 22, after allegedly attempting a stabbing attack in the occupied city of Hebron, security sources say.

They confirmed that Israeli forces opened fire on the man outside Hebron's iconic Ibrahimi Mosque after allegedly attempting to stab an soldier.

Israeli media said the alleged attacker, 22, was moderately wounded in the leg after the incident.

The Palestinian Authority's (PA) official news agency WAFA said the circumstances surrounding the alleged stabbing remain ambiguous and largely based on the Israeli version of events.

Activists say that some video footage of other alleged attempted stabbing incidents have appeared to show soldiers manipulating the crime scene following the shooting of alleged Palestinian assailants.

Israel has been condemned for the knee-jerk use of lethal force and "extrajudicial killings" when alleged Palestinian attackers no longer pose an immediate threat to soldiers.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that circumstances surrounding such killings over the past months remain disputed.

Read also: Israeli forces shoot Palestinian in neck while 'seizing electric generator'

In May, Israel accused Iyad Hallaq, an unarmed autistic Palestinian man was shot dead on his way to his special needs school. Israel police claimed the 32-year-old was carrying a "suspicious object" before shooting him dead, although the man was unarmed. 

Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank have been targeted in stabbings and car rammings.

Hebron is an particularly hostile environment for Palestinians due to the large number of settlers in the city.

Palestinians in the occupied territories also live in fear of attacks by both armed settlers and soldiers.

Around 600 ultra-nationalist Israeli settlers live in the heart of Hebron, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank. The settler enclave is protected by twice as many Israeli soldiers.

Israel has occupied the West Bank illegally since 1967, and commits various abuses against Palestinian civilians, human rights groups say.

More than 600,000 Israeli Jews live in settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, in constructions considered illegal under international law.

The Oslo agreement of 1995 divided the occupied West Bank into three zones: Area A, Area B and Area C.

Area A is under the administrative and security control of the Palestinian Authority (PA). Area B's administration is controlled by the PA, with Israel controlling security. Area C is under full administrative and security control of Israel.

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