At a checkpoint, a 41-year-old Palestinian truck driver crashed into Israeli soldiers with his truck and was later neutralized.
Israeli police and medical officials say that a Palestinian truck driver rammed into a checkpoint between Israel and the occupied West Bank, killing one Israeli soldier and hurting two others.
The crash happened Thursday at the Maccabim crossing, which Palestinians call Beit Sira. The driver left the scene right away but was stopped at another checkpoint about six kilometers (four miles) away, where he was shot and killed, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
A statement from the Israeli army said that the driver had been “neutralized.”
In a separate statement, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant sent sympathies to the family of the soldier who was killed and praised the security forces “for their determined action” in killing the attacker.
A leader of the Israeli police said that the driver was a Palestinian guy who was 41 years old and had a work permit in Israel.
At the second checkpoint, a white truck was circled by security guards as gunshots were heard on a video that was shared on social media.
The checkpoint where the truck hit the soldiers is next to the Israeli city of Modiin. It is on a major highway that goes from central Israel through the occupied West Bank and into Jerusalem. Most of the time, there are a lot of commuters, security guards, or soldiers at the station.
This happened a day after a 15-year-old Palestinian boy stabbed and hurt an Israeli settler at a light-rail stop in occupied East Jerusalem. He was shot and killed by a police officer who wasn’t on duty.
Overnight on Thursday, an explosive device hurt four Israeli soldiers who were patrolling and escorting Jewish settlers to Joseph’s Tomb in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus. This is a place of conflict where Palestinians often protest.
Since the beginning of last year, Israel has made raids almost every night in the occupied West Bank, and attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian towns and villages have gone up.