A Palestinian who tried to ram Israeli soldiers with his car in Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday was shot dead. AFP
A Palestinian who tried to ram Israeli soldiers with his car in the Israeli-occupied West Bank late on December 21 was shot dead by the soldiers, the latest incident of violence over the past month.
The man crashed his car into a military jeep after being shot, causing both vehicles to burst into flames, a statement from Israel’s military said of the incident near the northern West Bank city of Jenin.
The Palestinian health ministry later announced the death of a “citizen”.
Since late November the West Bank has seen Palestinian attacks on Israelis and the killing of Palestinians by Israeli troops during clashes, prompting UN Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland on December 17 to say he was “alarmed by the escalating violence” which has claimed the lives of Israelis and Palestinians.
In December 21’s attack, the army said “a terrorist accelerated his car towards a manned military post adjacent to the community of Mevo Dotan” in the West Bank.
“IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] troops who were at the point operated to stop the assailant by firing towards the vehicle,” the statement said.
It added that the vehicle then crashed “into a military vehicle that was in close proximity to the post. As a result, the vehicles caught on fire”.
An army spokesman said the military believed the assailant had died as a result of gunshot wounds, but was unable to confirm this.
On December 19 the army said they had arrested four Palestinian men suspected of shooting dead a Jewish settler and wounding two others in an attack in the West Bank on December 16.
The four are suspected of firing at least 10 bullets at a car, killing 25-year-old religious student Yehuda Dimentman and wounding two fellow students as they drove out of Homesh, an illegal outpost in the northern West Bank.
Israel captured the West Bank in 1967 from Jordan. Nearly 500,000 Israelis have moved into settlements in the territory, which much of the international community regards as illegal.
Dimentman, a married father, was studying at a yeshiva – or religious school – in Homesh, which had been evacuated by Israeli forces in 2005 but where settlers nevertheless continued to operate the centre.
On December 18, Israeli border police arrested a 65-year-old Palestinian woman in Hebron after she allegedly stabbed and injured an Israeli settler.
On December 17, Jewish settlers raided the northern West Bank village of Burqah, near where Dimentman had been killed the night before.
An AFP reporter observed Israeli assailants hurling stones through the windows of homes and firing weapons.
Further south in the village of Qaryut, a Palestinian man was hospitalised after settlers assaulted him at home, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. Israeli police said they were investigating the incident.
