2 police hit by vehicle, lightly hurt in Kafr Qasim; driver shot

Two police officers were hit by a vehicle in Kafr Qasim in the pre-dawn hours of Friday morning. It wasn’t immediately clear if the incident was a terror attack.

The officers were lightly hurt in the collision in the Arab-majority town in central Israel.

The driver of the vehicle was shot during the incident. His condition was unclear.

There was also gunfire directed at the officers, according to Hebrew media reports. It wasn’t known if the driver had used a weapon or if there were other suspects involved.

Police dispatched reinforcements to the area, including special forces units, and were searching for additional suspects.

There was no immediate confirmation from police or the Israel Defense Forces.

The reported incident came amid high tensions and regular clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinians, with most of the violence taking place within the West Bank.

An Israeli anti-terror offensive has mostly focused on the northern West Bank to deal with a series of Palestinian attacks that have left 31 people dead in Israel and the West Bank since the start of the year.

The operation has netted more than 2,500 arrests in near-nightly raids, and has also left 170 Palestinians dead, many of them — but not all — while carrying out attacks or during clashes with security forces.

On Thursday, a member of the Hamas terror group was killed as Israeli troops clashed with Palestinian gunmen in Nablus.

Earlier this month, a Palestinian rammed a vehicle into a motorist in Tel Aviv. Police prosecutors said Monday they plan to file terror charges against the suspect after an investigation found the motive for the incident was nationalistic.

Authorities are also facing regular violent crime in Israeli Arab communities, with three suspected murders taking place on Wednesday and Thursday.


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