A Palestinian driver rammed his vehicle into an army jeep containing Shin Bet
(Israel Security Agency) officers and attacked them with an ax, before being
shot dead on Monday.
A man identified by various sources as Hatem Shadid
veered his vehicle from his lane to the oncoming lane and collided head-on with
the jeep on Route 57 in the northern West Bank, security forces said.
The
Shin Bet officers had been carrying out operational duties in the area, between
Shavei Shomron and Einav.
All five of the jeep’s occupants were lightly
injured in the collision, and two were moderately injured in the ax
attack.
“He lunged at the men while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ [God is
great],” a security source said. A Shin Bet officer shot and killed the
attacker.
An initial investigation has found that Shadid was a resident
of the Tulkarm area.
Security forces are treating the incident as a
terrorist attack.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said large numbers of
police and army forces attended the scene.
It remains unclear whether the
incident was a lone-wolf attack or an organization dispatched the
attacker.
The Shin Bet carries out daily security missions in the West
Bank, working with the IDF in targeting active terrorism suspects.