Israeli soldier killed by Palestinian in West Bank

A Palestinian driver crashed his truck into soldiers at a busy checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, killing one soldier before being shot and killed by Israeli authorities. This incident is part of ongoing violence in the region.

The violence happened the day after Israeli police shot and killed a 14-year-old Palestinian boy who had stabbed a man at a train station in Jerusalem. Additionally, Palestinian militants set off a bomb near a group of Israeli soldiers who were protecting Jewish worshippers going to a sacred place in the West Bank, injuring four soldiers.

The unrest is a part of a wave of violence that has been happening for more than a year in the West Bank. It is the highest level of violence seen in this area in around twenty years.

According to Israeli officials, the person driving the car, who is a 41-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank, was going east towards the crossing when he saw the soldiers close to a bagel stand. He turned his vehicle around and crashed into the soldiers, who were wearing their official clothing.

An official from the Israeli military said that the driver had permission to work legally in Israel. He used a car with an Israeli license plate that he did not own to carry out the ramming. The person who spoke cannot be named because of military rules.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that during the attack, one Israeli person died, and later it was confirmed that the person was a soldier in the military. The military said that three more soldiers got hurt. The military officer said that a Palestinian citizen of Israel who sells bagels was also hurt.

A video on social media showed a white truck being approached by security guards at the second checkpoint while shots were being fired. Palestinian media says the driver’s name is Tahaer Daras and he lives in Deir Ammar close to the city of Ramallah in the West Bank.

The place where the truck crashed into the soldiers is located on a big road that goes from central Israel to the West Bank and Jerusalem, and is close to the city of Modiin in Israel. The checkpoint is usually filled with people going to work and guards or soldiers.

Attacks by Palestinians against Israelis have increased as Israel has stepped up its arrests in the West Bank since last year. Over 30 people have died in Palestinian attacks on Israelis since the beginning of 2023.

These frequent raids that happen almost every night have made tensions rise in the area and have caused some of the worst fighting between Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank since the last rebellion by the Palestinians in the early 2000s.

More than 180 Palestinians have died in the fighting, and almost half of them were part of militant groups, says an Associated Press count. Israel claims that the majority of those who were killed were militants, but there were also young people throwing stones to protest the invasions, as well as innocent people who were not involved but still died.

Israel says that the raids are being done to break apart groups of fighters who use violence, and to stop them from being able to plan and carry out more attacks in the future. Palestinians believe that these raids make their security forces weaker, encourage more violence, and strengthens Israel’s hold on the territories they want for their own state in the future.

Israel took control of the West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip during the war in the Middle East in 1967.