On Tuesday, Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian man north of the Al-Biereh city, in the central West Bank governorate of Ramallah and Al-Biereh, after claiming he tried to ram them with his car shortly after ramming and seriously wounding a soldier. The Palestinian is the fifth, including two siblings, to be killed by Israeli soldiers Tuesday.
In a statement, the Palestinian General Assembly for Civil Affairs said the soldiers killed Rani Ma’moun Fayez Abu Ali, 45, from Betunia town, west of Ramallah.
It added that the soldiers shot and seriously injured the Palestinian, who later succumbed to his wounds at an Israeli hospital.
The Israeli army claimed that the soldiers fired several live rounds at the Palestinian who was driving his car and rammed it into a metal barrier and alleged that he was trying to “ram the soldiers with his car.”
The soldiers immediately started firing live rounds through the rear windshield of the stopped car, which indicated that the Palestinian was posing no threat to them at the time.
Some Israeli reports also claimed that the Palestinian driver “exited his car and was shot by the soldiers in the middle of a busy road.”
However, a video from the scene shows the Palestinian car stopped after hitting a road barrier, before sounds of live fire are heard, and also shows an Israeli police officer striking the car’s side window with his rifle, an issue that indicates that the driver was still inside the vehicle that came to a complete stop.
The army also stopped and prevented Palestinian ambulances from reaching the wounded man and closed the entire area.
Israeli sources said a female soldier suffered serious wounds after being rammed by the car driven by the slain Palestinian.
According to Israeli reports, the officer, roughly 20 years of age, was injured at 10:45 in the morning on Route 60 near Kochav Ya’akov, north of occupied Jerusalem, before Israeli medics were called to the scene to treat the woman and evacuated her to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem.
Also, according to the Israeli reports, the “driver sped away before he was located and shot after a short manhunt.”
Israeli National News quoted Paramedic Shmulik David stating, “We were told that a vehicle hit her [the soldier] and escaped. We moved her quickly to the ambulance while providing life-saving treatment, stopping the bleeding and providing pain relief, and then transferred her to a mobile intensive care unit that is conveying her to hospital in severe but stable condition,”
The army said the soldier was run over at a gas station near Kokhav Ya’akov colony and that the Palestinian fled the scene before the soldiers killed him after a “short manhunt,” and added that the soldiers initiated massive searches in the area “looking for additional suspects.”
Surveillance shows the car turning around in a gas station, trying to speed out, and then ramming the soldier before the driver sped away. However, it is hard to determine if the driver lost control of his car and struck the soldier before fleeing the scene.
The Israeli National News also said that the Police Sergeant Majors David Yoel and Menashe Naftali “praised the officers who killed the Palestinian.”
It also quoted Police Commissioner Yaakov ‘Kobi’ Shabtai, who spoke to the two officers who opened fire at the car and “praised them for their efforts in neutralizing the terrorist.”
Shabtai, according to Israeli National News, also said that the officers “performed excellently” and that their so-called “initial identification of a suspicious vehicle, before they even knew about the incident, followed by their linking it to the incident, with the result of a dead terrorist – that’s what I want to see.”.
An Israeli police officer said that he and other officers noticed a speeding car “driving widely” and also at the same time “hearing reports about an attack” before firing many live rounds at the Palestinian driver who allegedly continued to drive “trying to escape towards Givat Assaf” colony.
According to Israeli National News, the officer added, “We realized that it was the [terrorist’s vehicle]. We spread out and stopped the vehicle, and fired at him, and he continued to escape toward Givat Assaf. We drove after him – he was endangering the other drivers on the road – and in the area of the checkpoint, we approached him.”
Palestinian sources said the Palestinian was killed because Israeli soldiers profiled him as the attacker and chose to fire many live rounds at his car and that the entire incident was a traffic accident and not a ramming attack.
The slain Palestinian was a married father of five children and had a permit to work at a “Rami Levy Store” in the Benyamin colony; he started working there about a month ago.
It is worth mentioning that many Palestinians have been killed or seriously injured in traffic accidents involving Israeli vehicles, soldiers, or colonizers after the army believed those accidents were “deliberate ramming attacks,” an issue that raises fears among Palestinian drives involved in this type of traffic accidents with Israeli colonizers or soldiers, pushing many to try to flee in fear of being profile as attackers before being shot.
On Tuesday evening, Israeli soldiers killed Ra’ed Ghazi Na’san, 21, after the army invaded the Al-Mughayyir village east of Ramallah, in the central part of the occupied West Bank.
Early Tuesday morning, Israeli soldiers killed two Palestinian siblings, Jawad Abdul-Rahman Rimawi, 22, and his brother, Thafer, 21, in Kafr Ein town, northwest of Ramallah, in the central West Bank.
On Tuesday dawn, the Palestinian Health Ministry said a Palestinian, Mohammad Mahmoud Ekhlayyel, 44, died from serious wounds he suffered after Israeli soldiers shot and seriously wounded him and injured twenty-one after the army invaded Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank.
