Girl in Israeli Settlement Shot in Possible Attack

A nine-year-old Israeli girl from a settlement near the West Bank city of Ramallah was in serious condition after being shot late on Saturday, police and emergency services said.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told Agence France Presse the girl, from Psagot east of the Palestinian political capital of Ramallah, was "shot while playing in the garden outside her house".

"She was shot in the upper part of the body," he said.

Rosenfeld said the girl was taken to a hospital in Jerusalem, and that police were looking at different leads, "including that it was a terrorist attack".

He said residents of Psagot had been ordered to stay inside their homes until further notice.

A spokesman for Israel's Magen David Adom emergency services said the girl was taken to hospital conscious but in serious condition.

Last month an Israeli soldier was shot dead in the southern West Bank city of Hebron in what the army believes was a Palestinian sniper attack, although no suspects were later apprehended.