JERUSALEM: Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, Palestinian health officials said, and a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli in Jerusalem, police said.

The Israeli military said its troops were trying to detain a vehicle after its passengers had crossed illegally into Israel. It said the vehicle fled and hit a soldier, after which “the soldiers fired towards the vehicle”.

One of the passengers died at hospital, Palestinian hospital officials said. The man’s father told Palestinian Qudsnet news that his son was headed for work when he was shot. It was unclear whether he had an entry permit into Israel.The official said Rabi Arafah Rabi, 32, was hit by “a bullet to the head” at a checkpoint southeast of the city of Qalqilya.

The Israeli military said troops had fired on a vehicle carrying three people suspected of trying to enter Israel illegally after it failed to stop for inspection and instead moved off, hitting a soldier. The soldier did not require medical attention, the army added.

In a separate incident in the West Bank, Israeli defence officials said a Palestinian driver rammed his car into a manned guard booth, in what it described as a suspected attack.

In Jerusalem, Israeli police said they shot and “neutralised” a Palestinian who had stabbed and badly wounded an Israeli. Video circulating on social media showed the suspected assailant lying wounded at a playground where children had been playing soccer, as an armed police officer stood over him.

Police said officers “neutralised” a Palestinian stabbing suspect in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem after an attack that left an Israeli man in serious condition.

“The suspect stabbed a passer-by with a knife and fled” the scene north of the Old City, police said.

Following a brief manhunt, the suspect was “neutralised” in east Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, police said, without immediately elaborating on his condition or identity.

Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has surged in recent months, amid an uptick in anti-Israeli attacks and near daily raids by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

More than 115 Palestinian fighters and civilians have been killed this year, the heaviest toll in the West Bank for nearly seven years, according to the United Nations.

Violence in the West Bank has escalated in recent months, occasionally spilling over into Jerusalem, after Israeli forces began a crackdown in late March in response to a string of attacks by Palestinians in Israel.

US-brokered peace talks, aimed at ending the decades-old conflict and establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, collapsed in 2014 and show no sign of revival.

Israel holds an election on Nov 1 with Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who in September backed a two-state deal with the Palestinians, competing against former hawkish premier Benjamin Netanyahu, who has gone back and forth on the issue.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2022