Car rams East Jerusalem checkpoint; Palestinian toddler mistakenly shot dead by cops

Border Police officer lightly hurt; forces chase car, shoot dead occupants, but also kill 3-year-old girl in second vehicle

Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent

First responders at the scene of a car-ramming attack in East Jerusalem on January 7, 2024. (MDA)
First responders at the scene of a car-ramming attack in East Jerusalem on January 7, 2024. (MDA)

Police said a Palestinian toddler was mistakenly killed by security forces Sunday and a Border Police officer was lightly injured during a car-ramming attack at a checkpoint in East Jerusalem.

Video footage showed officers checking a van at the checkpoint and allowing it through before a second car accelerated into the Border Police officer, in her 20s.

According to police, the officer was lightly wounded. Footage then showed officers chasing after the second vehicle, opening fire and killing its occupants.

The three-year-old Palestinian girl who was mistakenly killed by the gunfire was in the first car that had passed, police said, and added the incident was under further investigation.

The video appeared to show the first vehicle was in security forces’ line of fire as they shot at the attackers.

According to medics, the girl was critically injured by the gunfire and was declared dead at the scene a short while later.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said it took the injured officer to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center in good condition.

Earlier Sunday, an East Jerusalem man was shot dead in a terror shooting north of Ramallah.

A 42-year-old woman, a pharmacist at Jerusalem’s Hadassah Medical Center, was seriously injured in the attack after attending a Christmas celebration in Ramallah and was taken to a hospital in the city by passing Palestinian medics.

She was then transferred to Hadassah, where she was undergoing treatment, the hospital said in a statement.

Security forces launched a manhunt for suspects.

The shooting occurred between Ateret and the junction with Route 60, the West Bank’s main north-south artery, in an area named for an old British police station.

The shooting appeared to be the first deadly attack in the West Bank since November, though there have been a number of attempted attacks in that period. On December 31, two guards were injured in a stabbing at the entrance to the Mishor Adumim industrial zone, during which the assailant managed to grab a semi-automatic rifle.

The scene of a terror shooting attack on the West Bank’s Route 465 on January 7, 2024 (Magen David Adom); Inset: An image of Amar Mansour, 33, killed in the attack (Courtesy)

It was also the latest of a series of incidents outside the northern quadrant of the West Bank, where much of the violence has been concentrated in recent years. Army raids have largely focused on Jenin, Nablus, and Tulkarem, where they have attempted to uproot terror movements that had gained footholds.

Overnight, a Border Police officer was killed and three others injured when an explosive hit their vehicle during a raid in the Jenin refugee camp.

During the extraction of the wounded officers, an attack helicopter carried out an airstrike against a group of Palestinian gunmen hurling explosives at troops, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Seven Palestinians were killed in the strike, the Palestinian Authority health ministry in Ramallah said.

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