Nasser al-Shaer, who served as deputy prime minister for a year and a half after Hamas won the last Palestinian elections in 2006, was admitted to a hospital with gunshot wounds to his legs.

Photos on social media showed a car he had reportedly been riding in riddled with bullet holes in the driver’s side door.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the shooting and ordered an investigation.

He also phoned al-Shaer and wished him a speedy recovery, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

Hamas, denounced the shooting as an “assassination attempt,” calling on its rival Fatah movement to stop inciting against Hamas.

Since 2007, when Hamas seized power in the coastal strip, Gaza has remained under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade.

Al-Shaer also works as an academic at An-Najah University in Nablus city.

Palestinian professors’ union denounced the attack on the former education minister and described it as “sinful.” The union said that the attack on Prof. Al-Shaer is an attack on the entire Palestinian education system.