Palestinian driver shot dead while trying to ram through checkpoint — police

Border guards shot dead an East Jerusalem man who rammed his car into one officer after being caught presenting false identification papers at a checkpoint outside of Jerusalem on Wednesday afternoon, police said.

According to police, the suspect was stopped at the A’zaim checkpoint east of the capital and asked to identify himself. However, the papers he presented the officers appeared to belong to someone else.

While being questioned, the suspect — later identified by the Palestinian news site Ma’an as Nur Jamal Shaqir, a 30-year-old resident of the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem — drove his car quickly toward a border guard, hitting and lightly injuring him, police said.

Shaqir was shot by other officers at the scene and taken to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus, where he was pronounced dead, the medical center said.

According to the hospital, Shaqir sustained gunshot wounds to the stomach and arrived without a pulse.

Police said it was not immediately clear if the incident was an act of terror.

Videos from the scene show the officers arresting the fatally wounded driver next to his car just outside the checkpoint.

Police closed off the surrounding area and inspected the vehicle.

On Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said it had thwarted an attempt to attack troops with improvised explosive devices outside the village of al-Mughayyir near Ramallah in the central West Bank. They were uncovered by IDF troops and then disarmed by police sappers, causing no injuries or damage.

The explosives had been buried and covered with dirt for camouflage and rigged to blow if a soldier stepped on them. The incident came during a period of relative calm in the West Bank.

Earlier this month, a Palestinian man attempted to stab soldiers outside a refugee camp near the southern West Bank city of Hebron, the military said. Troops at the scene opened fire at the suspect, injuring him.

Last month, a member of the Palestinian Authority’s security services opened fire at troops in the northern West Bank, missing them, before he was shot dead by Israeli forces. Though not unprecedented, it is highly unusual for members of Palestinian security forces, which often coordinate closely with the IDF and other Israeli defense agencies, to carry out attacks against Israeli troops and civilians.

Aaron Boxerman contributed to this report.