Truck thief breaks into army base while fleeing police

The IDF and police are chasing after a suspected truck thief who broke into an army base in central Israel after he saw that law enforcement was closing in on him, police say.

Earlier in the day, police received a call about a stolen truck in the central Israeli city of Rishon Lezion.

A short while later, the officers came across the truck, which had been abandoned outside the army’s Tzrifin base nearby. During their search for the perpetrator, the police officers noticed a “suspicious man standing nearby,” a police spokesperson says.

As the officers approached, the suspect ran and “jumped into the base,” the police say.

The officers entered after him and are working alongside the base’s emergency response team to find the suspect, an army spokesperson says.

According to the military, the suspect is an Arab man.

“There’s no concern that this is anything terror-related,” the spokesperson says.

— Judah Ari Gross