An Israeli soldier was moderately wounded on Tuesday when an accelerating vehicle struck him in the northern West Bank in a suspected terrorist attack.
According to the military, a car accelerated towards several troops stationed near the settlement of Halamish, hitting a 19-year-old soldier. He was taken by helicopter to a hospital in moderate condition.
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First responders at the scene of a suspected car-ramming in the northern West Bank
(Photo: TPS)
The suspect — identified as 30-year-old Muhammad Yassine from the Palestinian town of Bil’in — was apprehended by troops at the scene and transferred to security forces for further questioning.
Israel Gantz, the head of the Binyamin Regional Council which governs Halamish, lambasted the government over the rapprochement between some of its members and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas amid a spate of nationalist-driven Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis.
"Arab terrorism has been on the rise for some time, and the Israeli government has thus far done nothing," he said.
“The government has turned a terrorism advocate [Abbas] into a viable partner and initiated a dialogue with the Palestinian Authority, both of which only serve to incentivize any would-be terrorists and the enemy as a whole."
This most recent attack comes less than a month after an IDF force managed to thwart a shooting attack near the settlement of Psagot, also in Binyamin Regional Council.
In 2017, a Palestinian assailant affiliated with the terrorist group Hamas stabbed a Jewish family to death in the settlement in an event dubbed the Halamish Massacre.