Palestinian tries to ram checkpoint, shot by police

Border police shoot and wound Palestinian suspected of trying to ram his car into security personnel east of Jerusalem.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Israel Border Police officers on Wednesday shot and wounded a Palestinian who attempted to ram his car into a security checkpoint on the main highway east of Jerusalem.

Police at the a-Za’im checkpoing “shot and neutralized” a 30-year-old man who tried to run them over, Israel Army Radio reported.

The suspect was in serious condition at the Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital in Jerusalem. There were no casualties among the Israeli security personnel.

Three weeks ago a Palestinian terrorist drove up to an IDF checkpoint near Nablus and pointed a weapon at soldiers, but was shot dead by alert troops before he could open fire.

There have been dozens of car-ramming attacks in the past few years, mostly at checkpoints in Judea and Samaria where police officers and troops have been killed and injured.

In a similar incident in June, police shot and killed a Palestinian driver who drove into a Border Policewoman at a checkpoint in the eastern half of Jerusalem and sent her flying through the air from the impact.

In a brutal attack in April, a Palestinian ran over a Border Policeman, then got out of his car and repeatedly stabbed the wounded officer before being shot by other security personnel at the scene.

There have also been numerous car-ramming attacks in Jerusalem, including one at a Jerusalem light rail station in November 2014 that killed three people and a truck-ramming in the Talpiot neighborhood in 2017 in which five IDF soldiers were killed.