Israeli vehicle rams Palestinian teen in hit and run incident

Sunday January 29, 2012 09:32 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

An Israeli driver hit a Palestinian teenager at a checkpoint near Jerusalem Saturday, then drove off in an apparent ramming attack. These types of incidents have increased in recent months, with Israeli settlers purposefully hitting Palestinian pedestrians with their vehicles.

Wall near Abu Dis (image from Huffington Post)

Despite the high number of Israeli soldiers who were present at the scene, no soldiers or police made an effort to apprehend the driver, who drove off after running directly into 18-year old Suleiman Abu Mahamid. Mahamid was standing just outside the al-Zayyam checkpoint in Abu Dis neighborhood, in East Jerusalem when he was struck by the vehicle.

The teen was taken to a medical clinic in Ramallah for treatment of his injuries.

According to eyewitnesses, the driver was an Israeli settler who took off down a Jewish-only road toward an Israeli settlement in the West Bank after the incident.

Some of the witnesses present at the scene were able to document the license number of the vehicle, but Israeli police did not take the information when it was presented to them.

Although several ramming incidents have been reported to the Israeli police and military in recent months, no investigations of these incidents have been carried out by the Israeli authorities.

jerusalem | israeli attacks | news report saed at imemc dot org