JERUSALEM: Israeli soldiers shot and martyred a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, Palestinian health officials said, and a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli in Jerusalem, police said.
The Israeli military claims its troops were trying to detain a vehicle after its passengers had crossed “illegally” into Israel. It said the vehicle fled and hit a soldier, after which “the soldiers fired toward the vehicle”.
One of the passengers died at a hospital, Palestinian hospital officials said. The man’s father told Palestinian Qudsnet news that his son was headed for work when he was shot.
In a separate incident in the West Bank, Israeli defence officials said a Palestinian driver rammed his car into a manned guard booth.
In Jerusalem, Israeli police said they shot and “neutralised” a Palestinian who had stabbed and badly wounded an Israeli. Video circulating on social media showed the suspected assailant lying wounded at a playground where children had been playing soccer, as an armed police officer stood over him.
Violence in the West Bank has escalated in recent months, occasionally spilling over into Jerusalem, after Israeli forces began a crackdown in late March in response to a string of attacks by Palestinians in Israel.
US-brokered peace talks, aimed at ending the decades-old conflict and establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, collapsed in 2014 and show no sign of revival.
Israel holds an election on November 1 with Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who in September backed a two-state deal with the Palestinians, competing against former hawkish premier Benjamin Netanyahu, who has gone back and forth on the issue. – Agencies
