ELAZAR: Two Israelis were wounded on Friday in what the Israeli army called a “terrorist” car-ramming attack near a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, while the suspected assailant was shot dead.

“A terrorist ran over two civilians,” an English-language army statement said.

“The civilians were injured and evacuated to hospital for medical treatment. The terrorist was neutralised,” it said.

The two wounded were brother and sister from Elazar settlement, adjacent to the scene of the incident, south of Bethlehem.

A police statement said an off-duty policeman passing by the scene near Elazar settlement saw the alleged attacker trying to exit his vehicle, and fired at him.

The Palestinian health ministry later said that the man had died of his wounds, without naming him.

Police video, shot by the same off-duty officer, showed the white suspect vehicle travelling at speed and veering off the road towards a bus stop.

Dr Bala Miklosh, head of the trauma department at Jerusalem’s Hadassah hospital, said one of the Israelis was a man aged “about 19” with serious head injuries, correcting earlier reports of his age.

“He is undergoing surgery but is not yet out of danger,” he said in a video clip on Whataspp.

A young woman — less seriously injured — was taken to the city’s Shaare Zedek hospital.

Last week, an off-duty Israeli soldier was stabbed to death in the same area.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2019