Elazar (Palestinian Territories) (AFP)
Two Israelis were wounded in a car-ram attack at the entrance to the Elazar settlement, south of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army said on Friday.
"A preliminary investigation of the incident indicates that a terrorist has crushed two civilians," the army said in a statement. As he was returning home from duty, a police officer witnessed the attack and saw the driver trying to get out of the vehicle. He "shot" at him and "neutralized" him, the police said, without spelling.
The incident took place at a bus station in front of the colony's entrance. Shortly after the attack, large numbers of security forces were patrolling the area, according to an AFP photographer on site.
A 17-year-old man was evacuated to Hadassa hospital in Jerusalem in a serious condition and under artificial respiration, according to a spokesman for the hospital. A girl, whose injuries are less severe, was also evacuated to another hospital.
The two wounded are a brother and sister living in the Elazar settlement where this attack has caused a stir, especially since it comes a little over a week after the discovery of the body in the same area of a young Israeli soldier, 19, stabbed to death.
On Thursday, two Palestinian minors stabbed and wounded "slightly" Thursday an Israeli policeman in the Old City of Jerusalem. One of the attackers was killed in retaliation by police and the second was evacuated to an Israeli hospital, which found his condition "critical".
According to the police, the attack took place in front of one of the doors leading to the mosque esplanade in the Old City of Jerusalem.
On Sunday, clashes between Israeli policemen and Muslims on the esplanade of the Mosques, a hotbed of tension in Jerusalem, left dozens of Palestinian wounded.
Four Israeli policemen were also wounded in the clashes on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, which coincided this year with the Jewish commemoration of Tisha Beav.
The Esplanade of the Mosques is the third holiest site of Islam and the most sacred site for the Jews because considered as the place of their two Temples, of which Ticha Beav commemorates the destruction, by the Babylonians in 587 BC then by the Romans in the year 70.
© 2019 AFP