Five Israeli servicemen have been injured after being hit by a Palestinian driver at two locations south of the West Bank city of Jericho.
First, the driver rammed a group of servicemen near Musa before ramming his car into a bus stop in Almog, the Army reports.
Two of the servicemen are in moderate condition while the other three have been lightly injured and their families have already been notified, medical sources tell ‘Times of Israel’.
The driver was shot several times by security forces and is now in critical condition, sources told ‘Yedioth Aharonoth’.
This incident comes after the death of an Israeli citizen has been shot dead by a Palestinian this past Saturday night between the settlement of Kiryat Arba and the West Bank city of Hebron, Israeli security forces have confirmed. Four other people, three Israelis and one Palestinian, were wounded.
The attacker, identified as Muhamad al-Jabari, was eventually run over by a vehicle and eventually succumbed to gunfire fired by a security guard.
These incidents have occurred amid a spike in tension in the West Bank, where different aspects of the conflict against Israel — military operations, police response or settler attacks — have left 32 Palestinians dead and 311 injured since the beginning of the year, while two Israeli military personnel and 25 Israeli civilians have been wounded, according to the UN.
They take place, moreover, just days before the November 1 legislative elections in Israel, where former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could win a parliamentary majority thanks to the momentum of ultra-nationalists, Ben Gvir among them.
