TEL AVIV, Israel — A Palestinian man threw acid at four girls and then tried to attack others with a screwdriver before he was shot in the occupied West Bank on Friday, Israeli officials said.
The attack occurred after the vehicle carrying the family stopped near the Tunnel Checkpoint to pick up an Israeli hitchhiker, at which point a Palestinian man nearby threw acid on the hitchhiker and the girls, "wounding them lightly to moderately," a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces said.
The attacker was not identified by the IDF, who said only that he was a 44-year-old man from Nehalin. Authorities said he tried to attack others with a screwdriver before he was shot twice “in the lower extremities” by a civilian. The suspect was taken to a hospital for treatment, the IDF said.
The incident, which occurred between the Jewish settlement of Beitar Iilit and the Palestinian village of Hussan, comes at a time of heightened tensions between Palestinians and Israelis. Violence has flarerd in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories Israel seized in a 1967 war and Palestinians want for an independent state.
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— Paul Goldman and Lawahez Jabari
Reuters contributed to this report.