A Palestinian terrorist was shot and killed Saturday night after attempting to run over an IDF force at a police checkpoint in Hebron. Paratroopers responded with fire and killed the terrorist, as well as an uninvolved cleaning worker. An Israeli man was lightly wounded.
According to the IDF, the attacker accelerated the vehicle toward 202nd Battalion paratroopers operating at the Hashoter checkpoint.
Site of terror attack in Hebron
Initially, the IDF stated that the two Palestinians who were shot to death were terrorists, but later the army retracted its statement and updated that one of them was not involved in the attack at all. The IDF spokesman's first statement stated: "Two terrorists accelerated their vehicle toward IDF soldiers during an operational activity at a security checkpoint in Hebron. The soldiers fired at the terrorists and eliminated them."
A few hours later, an IDF spokesman said: "Earlier today, a terrorist accelerated towards IDF forces that were on an operational mission at a police checkpoint in the Yehuda Brigade. The forces responded by firing at the terrorist in the vehicle, who was eliminated. A report received later indicates that an uninvolved person at the scene was hit, in addition to the elimination of the terrorist."
The terrorist who was eliminated is Ahmed a-Rajabi, 20. The second Palestinian who was shot dead is Ziad Abu Dawood, a cleaning worker in the Hebron municipality. The Palestinian city declared a strike for Sunday.
The incident came days after a string of attacks in the West Bank. On Tuesday, a Palestinian man stabbed two 20-year-old soldiers near the settlement of Ateret in the Binyamin region. The soldiers suffered minor wounds before troops from the Paratroopers Brigade’s 101st Battalion shot and killed the attacker. The military said he had been stopped for questioning after security cameras and a civilian report identified suspicious movement from the nearby village of Beit Rima. Following the attack, the army imposed a closure on the Arura area and set up roadblocks in surrounding villages.
The stabbing was the second assault in the West Bank within 10 hours. Earlier that day, a Palestinian driver who had rammed a female soldier near the Kiryat Arba bypass junction fled the scene and attempted another ramming attack near Hebron. Troops from the 202nd Battalion opened fire and killed him. The female soldier sustained minor injuries.
Last week, a separate incident heightened tensions when an iron rod was thrown at a car traveling on Highway 5 near the Palestinian village of Mas-ha, shattering the windshield. The driver, a resident of Ramat Gan, was treated for shock. Merav Ben-Avraham, 23, who was in the passenger seat, told ynet that she and the driver initially believed they were under attack. “Three minutes before the checkpoint, we heard a boom,” she said. “We saw the rod in the car, panicked, and thought it was a terror attack.”
The surge in attacks comes as Israeli forces continue a broad security operation across clusters of West Bank villages.
First published: 21:57, 12.06.25