Israeli soldier, Palestinian attacker killed in West Bank truck ramming

A Palestinian rammed a truck he was driving into three Israeli soldiers near a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, killing one before being shot dead, Israeli officials said.

Violence linked to the Israel-Palestinian conflict has surged since early this year, and Thursday's attack comes a day after a 14-year-old Palestinian stabbed a civilian at a tram station in Jerusalem.

The truck driver was a 41-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank with a work permit for Israel, Avi Biton, head of police central command, told reporters at the scene of the attack.

"The people he hit with his truck were soldiers," he said.

Police earlier said officers had "received a report about a hit-and-run incident near the Maccabim checkpoint."

The driver fled before being shot dead at another checkpoint a few kilometres (miles) away at Hashmonaim, west of Ramallah, they said.

Israel's defence ministry said its security personnel at the Hashmonaim checkpoint were informed by the army that the truck was coming their way.

The driver, Dawood Abed Razeq Fayez, was a resident of Deir Ammar refugee camp near Ramallah, a Palestinian security source told AFP. He declined to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

In an online briefing to reporters, an Israeli defence official who did not wanted to be identified said the attack occurred on the Israeli side of the checkpoint from the West Bank.

The attacker "was on his way to the checkpoint when he saw a group of soldiers. He made a U-turn to hit them," the official said, adding the soldiers were off-duty and were headed home when they were struck.

Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant offered his condolences to the family of the soldier killed and praised the security forces "for their determined action" that led to the killing of the attacker.

Rising violence

The Magen David Adom emergency service said five other people, including two soldiers, a 15-year-old Palestinian and a couple whose car was hit by Fayez during his attempted escape, were injured in the attack.

Thursday's ramming came hours after an improvised explosive device wounded four Israeli soldiers securing a road for the passage of Jewish pilgrims to a holy site in West Bank city of Nablus.

One of the soldiers was moderately wounded, the others lightly hurt, the army said in a statement.

Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, said the ramming "affirms the ability of the resistance".

In Wednesday's incident in Jerusalem, an Israeli border police officer who was travelling in a tram saw the attack as it happened and shot dead the teenager who was from east Jerusalem, a predominantly Palestinian area.

Violence from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has surged and has claimed the lives of at least 224 Palestinians so far this year.

At least 32 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have also been killed, according to an AFP tally based on official sources on both sides.

They include, on the Palestinian side, combatants as well as civilians and, on the Israeli side, three members of the Arab minority.