Israel police kill Palestinian

JERUSALEM: A Palestinian man was shot dead Wednesday after he hit an Israeli police officer with a van at a West Bank checkpoint and then stabbed him with a pair of scissors, police said.

A pipe bomb was found at the scene which the attacker had apparently intended to hurl at the officers, police said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wished a “speedy recovery” to the policeman — who was taken to hospital but was not in a life-threatening condition — and congratulated the forces who had “acted speedily and neutralised the terrorist”. A video published online showed the van hitting the officer and the driver getting out and chasing him with a sharp object in his hands. Other officers at the checkpoint then opened fire on the man, who initially kept running. “The terrorist drove his vehicle into the border policeman that was on duty,” police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said in an English-language statement, saying the attacker then stabbed the officer with a pair of scissors. “The terrorist was shot and killed,” Rosenfeld said. The Palestinian health ministry confirmed the dead man was a Palestinian, naming him as 25-year-old Ibrahim Halaseh.