JERUSALEM, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- Two Israeli youths were wounded in a car-ramming attack near a West Bank bus stop on Friday before security forces shot and killed the assailant, the military said.
In the incident, a Palestinian driver ran over his vehicle at an 18-year-old boy and a 19-year-old girl, while they were waiting for a bus outside the settlement of Elazar, southwest of Bethlehem, Israel's emergency medical service said.
The boy sustained serious injuries in a "critical condition" in the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, a spokeswoman for the hospital said. The girl sustained medium wounds and was rushed to another hospital in the city.
The police said that an off-duty policeman with the Hebron police station in the West Bank passed by the bus station when he saw the driver accelerating towards the civilians and then trying to get out of the car.
"The officer shot and neutralizing the assailant," the police said, resulting in the driver's death.
The violence was the latest incident in a recent series of individual Palestinian attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and East Jerusalem amid the long-stalled peace talks.
On Thursday, two Palestinian teens stabbed and injured an Israeli police officer in East Jerusalem's Old City before they were shot dead by policemen at the scene.
A week ago, two Palestinians stabbed to death a 19-year-old Israeli soldier outside his West Bank settlement.
Israel seized East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Middle East war, and has controlled it ever since, despite international criticism.
