Palestinians shot dead after alleged car attacks

Men allegedly drove their vehicles into soldiers in separate incidents near West Bank settlements before being killed.

Clashes after a Palestinian knife attacker was shot dead in West Bank
At least 101 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers since an upsurge in violence in October [EPA]

Two Palestinian men were shot and killed on Friday in two separate incidents, after they allegedly rammed their vehicles into Israeli soldiers.

The first incident occurred at a bus stop near the Jewish settlement of Kfar Adumim, close to Jerusalem, and the second was near Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

A Palestinian Health Ministry statement said the first Palestinian was shot dead by a settler at the scene of the incident near Kfar Adumim, without giving further details. Two Israeli soldiers were wounded in that incident, Israeli police and military said.

The second incident wounded six Israeli soldiers, according to Israeli police, and occurred on a road connecting the two Jewish-only settlements of Kiryat Arba and Gush Etzion, north of Hebron.

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Also on Friday, an Israeli settler in Bethlehem stabbed a Palestinian man, who sustained light injuries and is being treated at Beit Jala hospital. 

The events on Friday come a day after three Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank – two of whom were shot dead during protests.

The latest attacks have raised the death toll to 101 Palestinians killed since early October. Twenty-one Israelis have also been killed.

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from outside an Israeli prison near Ramallah where a group of young Palestinians held a protest on Friday, said things are currently at the worst they’ve been for a long time.

“It’s very difficult to see how at the moment both sides will come to the table,” she said. “Palestinians don’t believe that the Israeli government has any intention of ending its occupation.”  

The violence began when Israeli police and military forces began to crack down on Palestinian protests against Israeli incursions into the al-Aqsa mosque compound, and the failure of US-brokered negotiations for a separate Palestinian state.

More than 10,000 Palestinians have also been injured by Israeli police and military in the past two months, according to UN figures.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies