French photographer wounded in West Bank clashes

A photographer working for the French photo agency Gamma was shot in the leg today during clashes between Palestinian protesters…

A photographer working for the French photo agency Gamma was shot in the leg today during clashes between Palestinian protesters and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Gamma identified the photographer as 36-year-old Frenchman Mr Laurent van Der Stockt. His nationality had earlier been reported as Belgian.

He was taken to hospital in Ramallah and was due to be transferred to a hospital in Jerusalem. A Reuters photographer was working near Mr van Der Stockt at the time. He said Mr van Der Stockt had been shot while standing among the protesters.

Ramallah has often been the scene of clashes since Palestinians began an uprising against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in late September.

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Mr Van Der Stockt has covered conflicts in Rwanda, Chechnya, Afghanistan and the former Yugoslavia. He covered an earlier Palestinian Intifada which began in 1987.

He was also wounded while working in the former Yugoslavia.

Several foreign journalists have been shot and wounded in the last few months of Israeli-Palestinian clashes. None has been killed.

At least 384 people have been killed in the violence, most of them Palestinians.

Reuters