Female soldier seriously hurt in West Bank car ramming; attacker shot dead by police

An Israeli soldier was seriously wounded Tuesday in a car-ramming attack in the West Bank, the military and medics said.

Surveillance camera footage of the attack near the settlement of Migron, just north of Jerusalem, showed a black crossover SUV making a turn after spotting the soldier walking from a parking lot to a sidewalk. The vehicle rammed into the woman on the sidewalk, before driving over a small garden area, and onto a highway, fleeing the scene.

The Israel Defense Forces said the incident was a ramming attack, and asked for the footage of the ramming itself not to be published.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said it treated the woman, approximately 20 years of age, and took her to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek with a serious head injury. The hospital said her condition was stable.

The attacker was shot by officers after a brief chase, police said. He was also taken to Shaare Zedek, where medical officials declared him dead.

Police officials said officers found a knife in his car.

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The Kan public broadcaster named him as 45-year-old Rani Mamoun Fayz Abu Ali, a father of five from the town of Beitunia. The report said he had a valid permit to work in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The attack came as tensions were high in the West Bank.

In the spring, the IDF launched a major anti-terror offensive mostly focused on the northern West Bank to deal with a series of Palestinian attacks that have left 31 people in Israel and the West Bank dead since the start of the year.

The operation has netted more than 2,500 arrests in near-nightly raids and left around 150 Palestinians dead, many of them — but not all — while carrying out attacks or during clashes with security forces. At the same time, there has been a steep rise in settler attacks against Palestinians and security forces.