Two Israelis wounded, two Palestinian assailants killed in West Bank violence Thursday

A Palestinian assailant stabbed and lightly wounded an IDF soldier in the head near a checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron on Thursday morning.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Updated: OCTOBER 30, 2015 07:31
Scene of stabbing attack in Hebron
An Israeli soldier and a pregnant woman were lightly injured by Palestinians on Thursday as violence continued to rage in the West Bank, primarily around the Hebron area.
Security forces killed two knife wielding Palestinians in two separate incidents that occurred within hours of each other in Hebron.
Palestinians were wounded in three violent clashes that broke out between rioters and security forces, two in Hebron and one in Ramallah, near the Beit El settlement.
At night a Palestinian gunman opened fire at the bus stop on Route 60 on Thursday night just outside of the Ofra settlement, not far from Ramallah. No one was injured.
A few hours later outside of Hebron, Palestinians threw stones at cars on Route 60 near by the village of Beit Einun. A pregnant woman was lightly injured in the face by glass shards from the shattered window of her vehicle.
The day of violence began in the morning, at a spot in Hebron called Check- point 160 – on the road from Kiryat Arba to the Cave of the Patriarchs – where a Palestinian assailant stabbed and lightly wounded an IDF soldier in the head.
The officer quickly recovered from the attack and chased the assailant who tried to stab a border policeman at the scene.
Another Border Police officer standing nearby shot and killed the assailant, according to a police statement. The soldier was treated at the scene and transported by a Magen David Adom ambulance to the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.
The attack occurred in the sidelines of a violent clash between Palestinians and security forces near the checkpoint.
But a Palestinian witness, Hani Hadoush, disputed the Israeli description of the event and charged that the security forces had needlessly shot the young man in the shoulder and stomach.
“Then the youth fell on ground, he was holding nothing at all. We wanted to help the youth but the (Israeli) occupation forces came toward us and they started to shoot on us at the same time the soldier who started the shooting walked close to the youth and executed him from the zero distance, he shot him in the head,” Hadoush said.
A video was later published in the media, that showed the Palestinian assailant on the ground. A Border policeman with his gun drawn stood near the young man and shot him as he lay there.
Around noon on Thursday, soldiers stopped a suspicious looking Palestinian man just outside a checkpoint on Shuhadah Street in Hebron, by the Jewish apartment building of Beit Hadassah. They shot and killed him after he brandished a knife. Photos of the young Palestinian man lying on the pavement with a stream of blood flowing from under his head were circulated on WhatsApp.
Hours later a Jewish teen, wearing a black sweatshirt and jeans, stood smoking and talking to soldiers by Beit Hadassah.
“He stood there and they shot him,” the teen said, as he pointed out the spot on the road where the Palestinian assailant had stood. Blood stains could still be seen on the pavement by a stairwell, where Palestinian school children often descend on their way home in the afternoon. A black sign with the symbol of the Palestinian Authority hung off the school building, which looks out over the road.
Jewish children with water bottles washed away the last remnants of the blood. A few feet away a group of Jewish Hebron residents sat in front of the entryway to a Palestinian home. They claimed its occupants were involved in some of the recent attacks in Hebron and urged the IDF to close the doorway, forcing them to use the back door and preventing Palestinians easy access to the street.
A short distance away, on the side of the city under Palestinian civil control, some 300 rioters hurled rocks at soldiers by the police checkpoint. The soldiers responded with tear gas canisters and low caliber sniper rifle rounds. Three rioters were shot, an army spokeswoman said.
Earlier Thursday morning, Palestinian children on school grounds threw rocks at soldiers in Hebron who were there as part of a stepped up security operation. Soldiers identified the rock throwers and entered the school, where they spoke to the principal to avoid a repeat of the incident.
There were five other incidents in Hebron this week, in which a Palestinian stabbed or attempted to stab soldiers and Border Police.
In the Binyamin Region of the West Bank on Thursday, at Ayosh junction outside Ramallah, some 150 Palestinians threw rocks at soldiers on Thursday, who responded with low caliber sniper rifle rounds and rubber bullets. A few rioters were hit by IDF rounds in that incident, though the precise number is unclear, the army added.
Reuters contributed to this report.