JERUSALEM, Dec 3: Israeli forces from the Shin Bet internal security agency shot dead a Palestinian in the West Bank on Monday after he rammed their jeep and attacked them with an axe, the intelligence agency said.

“During the course of Shin Bet operations in the Deir Sharaf area, a Palestinian vehicle rammed into a military jeep. After the deliberate hit, the jeep flipped and its occupants were all lightly injured,” the agency said.

“Shortly afterwards, the Palestinian driver got out of his vehicle and approached the jeep wielding an axe…,” it said in a statement.

“He injured two of the people in the jeep with the axe. One of the Shin Bet agents fired… and killed him.”

The agency said “preliminary information” suggested the man was from a village in the northwest of the West Bank, near the city of Tulkarem. Earlier, Israeli police had said the jeep was carrying Israeli soldiers.

Palestinian sources said they had been informed of the incident, but the area where it took place had been declared a closed military zone. They identified the man as Hatem Shabib, from a village near the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem.—AFP