A would-be Palestinian Authority Arab terrorist was stopped in his tracks from carrying out an attack Saturday on IDF soldiers at the Bekaot crossing near Shechem. The IDF released video of the event, apparently shot from a distance, that gives a general picture of what happened.
The man, identified by PA sources as 25-year-old Khaldoon Samoudi, a resident of the village of al-Yamun near Jenin, got out of a taxi that was waiting at the crossing and started running towards the soldiers at the checkpoint.
Yelling “Allahu Akbar!” (Arabic for “G-d is Great”) – the traditional war cry of jihadists while launching terror attacks – the man raced forward with a suspicious object in his hands, a military source reported.
The soldiers shot in the air and warned him to stop. When he ignored the warnings, “The soldiers were left with no choice but to fire at him,” an IDF spokesman said, adding the protocol is standard arrest procedure in such cases.
All the other men in the taxi fled the scene.
The would-be terrorist died of his wounds. A search of the body by IDF sappers revealed he had been holding a pipe bomb, an additional explosive device and a knife. Medical teams who later arrived on the scene declared him dead.
According to a PA Arab witness quoted by CNN who saw the man approach the checkpoint, he ignored the soldiers’ commands to turn back.