One victim in serious condition with head injury after car rams into group near Beit Ummar south of Jerusalem, driver shot by forces on scene
Five Israeli soldiers were injured Wednesday when a Palestinian driver plowed his car into them on Route 60, north of the West Bank city of Hebron, in an apparent nationalistically motivated attack, the army said.
Two soldiers were hospitalized in moderate condition and three more suffered light injuries, according to the army.
Paramedics were at the scene of the attack, near the Palestinian village of Beit Ummar, treating the injured. Magen David Adom said all the injured were in their 20s.
The driver of the vehicle was shot by Israeli security forces at the scene, the army said.
“Forces on site who witnessed the attack responded, firing at the assailant,” the IDF said in a statement.
Palestinian rioters at the scene of the attack threw stones and prevented emergency services from reaching the victims, according to Channel 2.
According to the IDF, the attack occurred after an army jeep was pelted with stones, and two soldiers exited to call for backup.
“An additional force had just arrived at the scene when a Palestinian suspect sped his car towards the soldiers, intentionally ramming into them and wounding five,” the army said.
The attack was the third in that vicinity in recent days in which a Palestinian driver struck an Israeli pedestrian, and the latest in a series of attacks along Route 60 in the last two days.
On Tuesday afternoon, two Israelis were injured when a car plowed into a bus stop at the Gush Etzion junction, just north of Beit Ummar.
Hours earlier, an Israeli man was killed after being run over by a truck driven by a Palestinian, after getting out his car, which had just been pelted with stones, near the West Bank city of Hebron.
The driver later turned himself into police and said he had hit Avraham Hasano by accident while trying to evade rocks.
Hasano’s family, however, claimed his death was deliberate, and that the same driver had attempted it before.
Wednesday also saw two other attacks on the same highway north of Jerusalem.
In one incident, a driver rammed his car through a checkpoint, moderately injuring a policeman.
Later in the day, a soldier was stabbed and seriously wounded near the Hizme checkpoint.
As reported by The Times of Israel