Israeli forces kill Palestinian after five soldiers injured in car attack

Israeli forces killed a Palestinian on Sunday near Jericho after he allegedly rammed his car into a group of Israeli soldiers, injuring five.

The Palestinian health ministry identified the Palestinian as Barakat Odeh, 47 years old, from the town of Ayzariyeh north of Jerusalem.

According to the local secretariat of the Palestinian Fatah faction in Ayzariyeh, Odeh was a father of six, a taxi driver and a Fatah member.

49 year-old Palestinian Barakat Musa Odeh from al-Eizariya, shot by israeli troops in Jericho today, has died of his wounds | via @QudsNen pic.twitter.com/eW4oySOWeo

— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) October 30, 2022

Israeli media quote Israeli forces claiming that they opened fire at Odeh after he rammed his car into a group of soldiers near Nabi Musa, near the city of Jericho in the Jordan Valley, and that he fled.

According to Israeli reports, Odeh then slammed his vehicle again into a bus stop on an Israelisettles road, where he was shot dead by an Israeli police officer and an armed settler.

Following the attack, Israeli forces sealed off the area around Nabi Musa and banned the media from approaching the attack's site.

Israeli troops open fire on a Palestinian driver at Nabi Musa junction, just south of Jericho city, critically wounding him | @Aljarmaqnetnews pic.twitter.com/5tZxwPA3f1

— Sarah Wilkinson (@swilkinsonbc) October 30, 2022

In the following hours, groups of Israeli settlers took to Palestinian roads in the area and attacked Palestinian cars with stones.

At the Karmelo junction near the Palestinian town of Taybeh, 18 kilometres from Jericho, dozens of Palestinian vehicles stopped for an hour and a half, as Israeli settlers waited up the road with stones, in front of Israeli police and army. Two Palestinian buses which drove past the junction were attacked by the settlers.

"We were on our way back home from a church-organized trip to a religious festivity near Jerusalem, all from Taybeh," Nibal Kort, a mother of two who was on the bus, told The New Arab.

"There were dozens of people on the bus, including elderly and children, when we saw half a dozen masked Israeli settlers on one side of the road, holding stones, as Israeli soldiers on the left stood and watched," she described.

"There was panic in the bus, and I wrapped my arms around my 6-year-old son as we crossed between the settlers' stones," she went on. "Although our bus wasn't hit, the second bus behind us, where my mother-in-law was travelling, took several stones on the windows, but fortunately no one was hurt."

"My son asked me what had happened and I told him that they were Israeli settlers, and he said that he doesn't want to go on the school trip next week because he is too afraid of settlers," she added. 

In Ayzariyeh, Palestinians observed a full-day strike on Monday, in mourning for Barakat Odeh, whose body was withheld by Israeli forces.

At least five #Israelis injured in a car-ramming attack near #Jericho, among them are #IDF soliders; Palestinian assailant killed

Palestinian channels published the attached clip documenting the first few moments after the first car ramming near Nabi Musa.

According... (1/2) pic.twitter.com/9WT8lzNVaG

— AbuAliEnglish (@AbuAliEnglishB1) October 30, 2022

The attack near Jericho came one day after a shooting attack against the Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron, that killed one Israeli and wounded five. The Palestinian shooter was killed by Israeli forces, who also withheld his body.

The occupied West Bank has witnessed an escalation in Israeli raids and confrontations with Palestinians in recent months, which have claimed the lives of more than 160 Palestinians since the beginning of 2022. According to Israeli reports, 25 Israelis have been killed during the same period.