Palestinian shot at checkpoint
Israeli soliders have killed a Palestinian man they say charged a West Bank checkpoint with a pipe bomb.
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| Another Palestinian was shot at a West Bank checkpoint last week after charging the point with a bottle. [File: EPA] |
Israeli soldiers have shot and killed a Palestinian who tried to throw explosives at a West Bank checkpoint, the Israeli military said.
Officials said that the Palestinian fighter arrived at a checkpoint in the Jordan Valley on Saturday and charged at the soldiers while wielding a pipe bomb and yelling “Allah Akbar,” or “God is Great,” in Arabic.
The military says soldiers ordered the Palestinian to stop, then opened fire after he ignored them.
The military is investigating another incident which took place at the same checkpoint last week, when a Palestinian charged a checkpoint with a glass bottle. The military said that the soldiers initially thought he was carrying a bomb.
Later on Saturday, a mortar attack from the Gaza Strip wounded two Thai workers, one seriously, in southern Israel, the military said.
Violence in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip has declined since Israel’s offensive there two years ago. The campaign aimed to end years of Palestinian rocket attacks on southern Israel, but rocket fire and border clashes still occur occasionally.
The military said 240 projectiles were fired in 2010, a dramatic drop from the pre-offensive numbers.
Saturday’s mortar fire comes a day after an Israeli soldier was killed and four others wounded by friendly fire after a gunbattle broke out with Palestinian fighters along the Gaza border.