Israeli forces in Nablus kill Palestinian behind deadly car-ramming attack last year
After killing two soldiers outside West Bank city in May 2024, assailant handed himself in to the PA, which later freed him from custody
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleEmanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
A Palestinian assailant accused of being behind a deadly car-ramming attack in May 2024 was killed by counterterrorism police in the West Bank city of Nablus on Monday evening, the Israel Defense Forces, Shin Bet, and Israel Police said.
On May 29, 2024, Abdel-Raouf Shatyeh rammed his vehicle into an Israeli army post just outside Nablus, killing two soldiers: Staff Sgt. Eliya Hilel, and Staff Sgt. Diego Shvisha Harsaj, both 20-year-old infantrymen in the Kfir Brigade’s Nahshon Battalion.
During a raid on Monday night, officers of the police’s elite Yamam counter-terrorism unit closed in on a building in eastern Nablus where Shatyeh was holed up.
After it emerged that he was armed, police said the Yamam troops opened fire on the building, including by using shoulder-launched missiles and explosive drones.
Later, using a drone, the officers identified that he had been killed, police said.
The IDF and Shin Bet said that they had been working to track down Shatyeh since he fled the scene of the attack in 2024.
Yamam officers open fire on a building in the West Bank city of Nablus, where a wanted Palestinian assailant was holed up, late November 24, 2025. (Israel Police)
After the attack, Shatyeh fled to Nablus and initially turned himself over to the Palestinian Authority’s security forces. However, instead of being handed over to Israel, he was freed from the PA’s custody, and he had been wanted ever since.
In addition, several “accomplices” who were working with Shatyeh were detained by IDF soldiers in Nablus, the military added.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since the Hamas attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war in October 2023.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers since the war started, according to the PA health ministry. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 63 others, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another eight members of the security forces were killed in clashes during raids in Palestinian cities in the West Bank.
The same period has also seen a major surge in attacks by settler extremists on Palestinians across the West Bank.
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