Four Israeli soldiers wounded in car ramming attack near Lod, suspect killed

Israeli police shot dead a car driver who ran down four soldiers at a bus stop near a military base on Sunday, police and army spokesmen said.

Police called it a “suspected terrorist attack” and said the driver, a Palestinian from east Jerusalem, had been “neutralized” during the incident close to the Tzrifin military base near the central city of Lod.

A military statement said one officer and a soldier were “severely injured” in the incident and two others also hurt.

Several car ramming attacks have been reported since last year in a number of Israeli cities and in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The incidents come against the backdrop of Israel’s war against Palestinian Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip.

Video footage widely shared on social media and broadcast on television showed a white car on the pavement next to a bus shelter and uniformed men firing at the car. Traffic is halted on the major highway.

In a statement released by a first aid group, paramedic Michelle Rashkovski said: “When we arrived at the scene, we saw a vehicle that had hit pedestrians stopped at a bus shelter. We immediately called additional forces to the scene”.