Focus checkpoint
Focus checkpointFlash 90

The Military Advocate General, Major General Sharon Afek, on Friday ordered the Criminal Investigations Division to launch a criminal investigation into the killing of a resident of eastern Jerusalem who broke through the Focus checkpoint near Ramallah on Thursday night, while the security forces were searching for the perpetrators of a shooting towards Ofra, Channel 10 News reported.

Earlier on Friday, Brig. Gen. Eran Niv, Commanding Officer of the Judea and Samaria Division, clarified the rules of engagement regarding a vehicle, stating that IDF soldiers may fire at a vehicle only in case of "real danger to life."

"We do not kill people who did not intend to kill," Niv added.

An investigation of Thursday’s incident revealed that during the search for the perpetrators of the shooting attack on Ofra, the vehicle broke through a checkpoint, after it refused the soldiers’ calls to stop. The soldiers at the checkpoint reported to another force that was stationed at the Focus checkpoint.

When the vehicle approached the checkpoint, the soldiers called on the driver to stop, and after he accelerated and broke through the Focus checkpoint, they shot at the vehicle and killed the driver.

Meanwhile, security forces overnight Thursday discovered bullets near the hitchhiking stop at the entrance to the community of Ofra in the Binyamin region. This followed an attempted shooting attack on Thursday evening, in which terrorists fired from the nearby village of Ein Yabrud towards the hitchhiking stop.

On Friday morning, the IDF announced that it had mapped for demolition the homes of the terrorists who were involved in last week's terrorist attack in Ofra, in which Shira Ish Ran was seriously wounded and her baby, who was born prematurely in the seventh month of her pregnancy, died a few days later. The homes of the terrorists who carried out the attack at the Givat Assaf junction were mapped as well.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)