Army says alleged attacker has been arrested after incident next to bus stop near Ofra settlement

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

A Palestinian man has driven a car into people next to a bus stop near a settlement in the occupied West Bank, killing an Israeli soldier and wounding another, officials said.

The incident near the Israeli settlement of Ofra north of Ramallah occurred just a few days before the start of the Jewish Passover holiday, raising fears of an upsurge in violence.

The military named the dead soldier as 20-year-old Sergeant Elchai Teharlev. A spokeswoman said the wounded man was also a soldier, but did not comment on his condition.

The Israeli army said the alleged attacker had been arrested but gave no details about him.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa identified him as Malek Hamed, 22, from the nearby West Bank town of Silwad. The agency also said he had been shot and wounded.

After the incident soldiers surrounded a vehicle with Palestinian licence plates that had mounted the pavement.

The incident was the first fatal attack on Israelis since 8 January, when a Palestinian killed four soldiers in a Jerusalem truck-ramming attack.



A wave of violence that broke out in October 2015 has claimed the lives of 259 Palestinians, 41 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese, according to an AFP count.

Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, according to Israeli authorities.

Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip.

The violence has greatly receded in recent months.

There are fears about a fresh outbreak during the week-long Passover holiday, which begins on Monday, particularly if there is an increase in Jewish visitors to the flashpoint al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem.

The site is holy to both Muslims and Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount.

It is located in East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in 1967 and later annexed, and is central to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Tensions regularly flare over the site, with Palestinians fearing Israel will seek to assert further control over it.

Jews are allowed to visit the site but not pray there to avoid provoking tensions.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has said repeatedly that he has no intention of changing that status quo, though hardline members of his coalition push for Jewish prayer rights there.