An off-duty Israeli soldier has been killed as a result of a terror attack by a Palestinian man who carried out a truck ramming against a group of Israelis. Several others have been injured.
The injured include an Israeli couple, both aged 25, who were injured when there car was struck by the flatbed truck, a Palestinian teenager who was on foot and lightly wounded in the ramming attack and two more off duty Israeli soldiers, one of whom is in a critical condition.
The man who was killed has not yet been named, but the assailant has been identified.
The Times of Israel reports:
The Palestinian driver, identified by defense officials as 41-year-old Daoud Abdel Razak Faiz Faiz, a father of five, from the nearby West Bank town of Deir ‘Ammar, had a permit to enter Israel for work. Faiz had no prior security offenses, according to the Shin Bet security agency.
According to the IDF’s initial investigation, the assailant entered Israel through a checkpoint on foot shortly before 6 a.m., and picked up a truck that did not belong to him in the central city of Gedera.
He drove to the Maccabim checkpoint with the truck, where he carried out the ramming. He then fled back down the Route 443 highway toward Modiin, and made a turn at the Shilat junction, in an apparent attempt to enter the West Bank via the Hashmonaim checkpoint.
The Defense Ministry said its security guards, who operate the Hashmonaim checkpoint, were given a description of the assailant’s vehicle by the IDF moments after the attack at the nearby checkpoint.
The guards stationed at the Hashmonaim checkpoint opened fire at the truck as the assailant attempted to carry out a second ramming attack there.
The attacker was taken to a hospital in serious condition, and later died of his wounds.
What a tragedy that more innocent blood has been shed because of the antisemitic hatred of Palestinian terrorists.
Despite the heinous actions of the terrorist, Israeli medical teams attempted to save his life. This was a man who had just murdered an Israeli and injured others was then treated by Israelis, highlighting the difference between the two sides.
Another tragedy of this incident is that five young Palestinian children no longer have a father because he threw his life away in the pursuit of terror. Furthermore, they are likely to grow up with the false belief that their father did an honourable thing and they will be taught to hate Israel as a result of this.
It is a sad situation all around and we must continue to pray for peace. Pray that God will protect the Jewish people and that Palestinians will turn away from hate.

This year, we want to do more to bless Israel and the Jewish people.
We know that as we bless Israel this year, God will bless us, just as He promised in Genesis 12:3, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” Now is the time to bless Israel and the Jewish people.