Soldier kills Palestinian man after fatal attack, Israel says
JERUSALEM — A knife-wielding Palestinian man killed two Israelis in a stabbing Tuesday at a settlement in the occupied West Bank, then stole a car as he tried to flee the scene and crashed it on a nearby highway, killing a third Israeli, officials said.
The attack at the settlement of Ariel also left three Israelis wounded. The Palestinian was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier as he tried to run away from the crash scene.
The Zaka paramedic service said the three wounded were being treated in hospital and that they were in serious condition.
The assault was the latest in a wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence this year that has seen Palestinian attackers target Israeli civilians and near nightly Israeli arrest raids that have fueled unrest in the occupied territory.
On Monday, Israeli forces shot and killed a 15-yearold Palestinian girl during a pre-dawn raid in the West Bank, the Palestinian
Health Ministry said, drawing condemnation from the United Nations and rights groups.
The circumstances surrounding the death of the teenage girl in the city of Beitunia in the central West Bank, identified by Palestinian health officials as Fulla al-Masalmeh, were not clear. The Israeli military said soldiers opened fire on a vehicle that was accelerating toward them after they signaled for it to stop. The military said it was investigating.
But a witness claimed the girl’s car posed no apparent danger to the Israeli troops, some of whom were crouched behind a line of parked cars and could not have been easily visible to an approaching driver.
In Tuesday’s attack, the Israeli military said the Palestinian first stabbed several Israelis at the entrance to the settlement’s industrial zone, then proceeded to a nearby gas station and stabbed more people there. The army said the man then stole a car and intentionally crashed it into another vehicle before fleeing the scene on foot.
Troops were searching the area for additional suspects, the military said.
Israeli media identified the three victims as Mordechai Ashkenazi, 59; Tamir Avichay, 50; and Michael Ladigin, 36.
Amateur video aired on Israeli television appeared to show the suspected attacker running down a highway and collapsing to the ground after he was shot. The Palestinian Health Ministry later confirmed that Mohammad Souf, 18, from the nearby village of Hares was the attacker.
The assailant’s uncle, Marwan Souf, told the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa, that Israeli security forces raided the family house in Hares and interrogated 15 of his relatives. He also said forces took measurements of the home in preparation for demolition. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Envoys from the United States, European Union and United Nations all condemned the attack.
“This senseless violence needs to stop!” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides wrote on Twitter.