Three soldiers were wounded in a vehicular terror attack Thursday afternoon at Sinjil junction, near Shiloh in Samaria, several kilometers north of Jerusalem. Two of the wounded soldiers are in serious condition, and the third victim was lightly hurt.
Dr. Asher Salmon, Deputy Director of Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital, said that two casualties were brought into the hospital – one by road and the other by helicopter – and that both are in serious condition. Both victims are under sedation and artificial respiration.
Magen David Adom doctors and paramedics had administered initial care to all three casualties, with the aid of an IDF medical team.
The driver of the car who carried out the attack was reportedly shot at the scene by an IDF force, and injured. He was trapped inside his vehicle. He was brought to Shaare Tzedek Hospital where he was listed in serious condition, in the Intensive Care Unit.
According to an initial report from MDA Spokesman Zaki Heller, the injured include a 20-year-old man who is in critical condition with head injuries. Heller said the terrorist was receiving medical aid from an IDF team.
All three injured soldiers are combat soldiers from the Infantry Training School, who were on patrol on Highway 60. The force reinforced the IDF forces in the region after the recent arson attack in the village of Duma, in which a baby was killed.
The attack is only the latest in a long list of terrorist attacks in which cars, trucks and other vehicles were used as lethal weapons.
In the last such incident, several Israeli border police officers were wounded in a car-terror attack in Jerusalem May 20, close to the Mount of Olives, in the A-Tur neighborhood; their wounds were described as light-to-moderate. The terrorist was shot and critically wounded by police, and died of his wounds shortly after.
Four teenage boys were wounded May 14 by an Arab motorist in a car terror attack, at the entrance to the town of Alon Shvut in Gush Etzion, south of Jerusalem. Three of the victims – all 16-year-old students – were described in light to moderate condition; the fourth was in serious condition.
On April 15, an Arab driver ran over and killed Shalom Yohai Sherki, the son of the popular Rabbi Uri Sherki, and brother of Channel Two journalist Yair Sherki. Sherki and a second victim, a woman around 20 years of age, were run over at a bus stop in the French Hill area of Jerusalem.
After the recent spate of vehicular attacks, official and semi-official Palestinian Authority publications called for more such attacks, according t Palestinian Media Watch (PMW). "The National Liberation Movement - Fatah" Facebook page, for one, showed a cartoon of a car with Palestine Liberation Organization flag colors trying to ram three fleeing Jews.