Security guard lightly hurt in suspected ramming at Jerusalem checkpoint

An Israeli security guard was lightly injured in a suspected car-ramming attack at the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem on Thursday, police and medics said.

In a statement, the Israel Police said the driver who rammed into the civilian guard at Qalandiya Crossing, a 38-year-old Palestinian from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr ‘Aqab, was detained at the scene by security forces.

Police said the man arrived at the checkpoint from the direction of the West Bank town of Qalandiya, after he apparently cut himself with a boxcutter.

He stopped at the checkpoint, and as a security guard approached him, the suspect accelerated suddenly, swerved from the driving lane, and hit another civilian security guard who was standing nearby, police said.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said its medics treated the 32-year-old guard at the scene and took him to Shaare Zedek Hospital in the capital. He suffered minor injuries to his lower body, MDA said.

Police said officers found a boxcutter covered with the suspect’s blood inside the car and following an initial assessment, believed the man was suicidal.

A knife covered in blood found in a car used by a Palestinian in a suspected car-ramming attack at the Qalandiya Crossing near Jerusalem, September 21, 2023 (Israel Police)

Violence has surged across the region over the past year and a half, with a rise in Palestinian shooting attacks against Israeli civilians and troops in the West Bank, near-nightly arrest raids by the military, and an uptick in revenge attacks by extremist Jewish settlers against Palestinians.

Palestinian attacks in Israel and the West Bank since the beginning of the year have left 27 civilians and three soldiers dead, and several others seriously wounded.