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BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- A Palestinian woman was shot and injured by Israeli security guards at the Qalandiya checkpoint between the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem on Monday afternoon, as Israeli police claimed she was carrying a bag in a "suspicious manner."

Israeli police spokeswoman Luba al-Samri said in a statement that a “suspicious” Palestinian woman entered the vehicle lane of the checkpoint “seemingly carrying an object."

“The security guards noticed her and instructed her to stop but she ignored the instructions,” al-Samri said.

“The guards then started arrest procedures and neutralized the woman,” al-Samri added, using an Israeli forces term to indicate that a Palestinian was shot without specifying whether they were injured or killed.

Al-Samri later clarified that the woman had been "lightly injured," and that she had been "carrying a bag" in a way that raised the security guards' suspicions.

The police spokeswoman said that the Palestinian was in her thirties and was a resident of the village of Kafr Aqab in the West Bank district of Jerusalem with a Jerusalem ID.

The Qalandiya checkpoint is notorious for being confusing to navigate.
According to Ma'an documentation, five Palestinians were killed at the checkpoint in 2016, including two Palestinian siblings -- Maram Salih Hassan Abu Ismail who was 23 years old and five months pregnant, and her 16-year-old brother Ibrahim -- in April after Israeli officials claimed the two were attempting to carry out a stabbing attack.

However, witnesses said that the brother and sister posed no threat at the time of their death. Yet the Israeli Justice Ministry later dropped its probe into the killings after it was revealed that a contractor, not a member of the police, had killed the Abu Ismails.