A Palestinian woman was shot dead Friday by Israeli forces near the West Bank city of Hebron (Al-Khalil) after allegedly carrying out a vehicular attack, the Israeli army and the Palestinian Health Ministry have said, according to Anadolu Agency.
Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian woman who rammed a vehicle into a parked car near an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank on Friday, injuring two people sitting inside, the army said in a statement.
“Forces on site responded and fired toward the attacker, resulting in her death,” a military spokeswoman said.
Israeli forces responded by opening fire on the attacker, which led to her death, the army statement asserted.
The Palestinian Health Ministry has since confirmed that Majd al-Khdour, a 19-year-old mother of one, was shot dead by Israeli forces on Hebron’s eastern outskirts.
The Palestinian Red Crescent, for its part, said that Israeli army personnel had not allowed medical crews to provide Khdour with emergency treatment, leaving her to bleed to death.
Al-Khadour’s killing came days after Israeli forces shot and killed a 15-year-old Palestinian and seriously injured four other Palestinian teens while they were driving in their car. The Israeli army said initially that Mahmoud Badran was a “terrorist,” involved in nearby stone-throwing, though they later admitted he was an “uninvolved bystander” to the incident.
Palestinian knife, shooting and car ramming attacks have killed 32 Israelis and two visiting U.S. citizens over the past eight months. Israeli forces have shot dead at least 198 Palestinians, 135 of whom Israel has said were assailants. Others were killed in clashes and protests, Reuters reported.
Israeli authorities meanwhile have launched a crackdown in response to the escalation, promoting a “shoot-to-kill” policy against Palestinians, which has been accused by rights groups, international leaders, and Palestinian officials of enacting a policy of “extrajudicial executions.”
According to Israeli rights group B’Tselem, “There have been many reports since October of a policy permitting shoot-to-kill in incidents in which Palestinians harmed, or attempted to harm, Israeli security personnel or civilians, even when there is no clear and immediate mortal danger or if the danger can be overcome without resorting to a lethal outcome,” B’Tselem wrote.
Religious and political tensions over a Jerusalem site sacred to both Muslims and Jews have fueled the worst wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence since the 2014 Gaza war.
Confrontations have been exacerbated by Palestinians’ frustration over Israel’s 48-year occupation of land they seek for an independent state and the expansion of settlements in those territories which were captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
