Palestinians shot at a school bus and a cab for special needs pupils in the Samaria region of the West Bank on Wednesday morning, damaging both vehicles and lightly injuring the cab driver.
The vehicles were on their morning run to get the children but were empty at the time of the attack.
The cab driver Shimon Sebag said that a terror attack was the last thing on his mind when he left the Elon Moreh settlement at around 7:05 to pick up pupils from the nearby Tapuach settlement when he heard a loud bang.
"At first I thought I had a flat tire, but then after a minute I realized that they [Palestinians] were shooting at me," Sebag said in a statement he released to the media.
"I put my foot on the accelerator" and drove fast, Sebag said adding that at that same moment felt something hit his shoulder, which he imagined was a bullet.
It turned out that the bullet had grazed his shoulder, but he didn't know it at the time. Luckily, he was able to drive alongside the school bus, which is a protected vehicle and that shielded him from additional gunfire, he said.
Israeli settler leader calls on IDF to launch broader Palestinian terror response
Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan called on the IDF to embark on a larger-scale operation to halt Palestinian terror than then the one it has been engaged in since Mach 31, called Operation Breaking the Wave.
Dagan said that the IDF needed to revive the 2002 Operation called Defensive Shield, which had been its response to the Second Intifada.
"It is difficult to imagine the magnitude of the disaster that could have been caused" had children been in the vehicles, Dagan said.
"Only a miracle prevented a much more serious event," he added.
"Unfortunately, the government refuses to acknowledge this harsh reality and ignores the cries of the residents who fear for their lives."
Yossi Dagan
There has been an increase in attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria, Dagan said. "Unfortunately, the government refuses to acknowledge this harsh reality and ignores the cries of the residents who fear for their lives," he stated.
"We demand that the government launch Operation Defensive Shield 2," he added.