Relatives of Hamzeh al-Amleh (portrait) demonstrate in Hebron yesterday demanding that Israeli authorities release his body and those of other Palestinians killed in recent conflict.

AFP
Jerusalem


A Palestinian driver ran over and injured an Israeli border policeman near the West Bank city of Hebron yesterday and was then killed by Israeli forces, police said.
“A border policeman was taken to hospital seriously wounded and is in life-threatening condition,” police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.
“Policemen who were standing nearby opened fire at the terrorist and he was neutralised,” she added. “He was declared dead at the scene.”
Palestinian security officials identified him as Ibrahim Skafi, 22, from Hebron.
They said Israel later returned his body to his family and he would be buried today.
Israel has been withholding the bodies of some suspected assailants as part of measures to deter attacks on Jews.  
Last week it said it had released seven bodies, apparently to ease tensions, but Palestinians say they are still awaiting 10 corpses and protests over the issue have led to clashes.
Families of young people killed in the violence are clamouring for their bodies to be released and accuse authorities of “collective punishment”.
Palestinian officials said that after yesterday’s incident the army sealed off the surrounding area and collected video from the security cameras of shops and buildings.
Footage shown later on Israeli television channels showed a car speeding round a curve and ploughing into what appeared to be a group of uniformed men.  
The incident, at Halhul junction on the edge of the flashpoint city, followed a two-day lull in violence that has claimed the lives of nine Israelis, 70 Palestinians—around half of them alleged attackers—and an Arab Israeli since the start of October.
The violence was originally focused in and around Jerusalem, but the epicentre later moved to Hebron in the south of the occupied West Bank.  
On Monday, four Israelis were wounded in two stabbing incidents in Israel. One of the two Palestinian attackers was a teenager from Hebron, police said.
The same day a Palestinian tried to stab an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint in the northern West Bank and was shot dead.
Over the past two weeks, around 20 young Palestinians have been shot by Israeli forces in and around Hebron. The army has accused them of trying to stab Israeli security forces or Jewish settlers.
The city, the largest in the West Bank, is home to a shrine known to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs and to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque.