A police officer was killed and another injured early Wednesday morning, when an Arab terrorist attacked security forces securing the demolition of illegal structures in the Bedouin settlement of Umm Al-Hiran in southern Israel.
“It was not a car-ramming incident; it was a terror attack that murdered a policeman,”
-Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told Israel Radio. Erdan accused Arab lawmakers of inciting the violence, in particular, Arab Joint List leader MK Ayman Odeh, who was lightly wounded in the protests.
According to police sources, the driver of the ramming vehicle, identified as local schoolteacher Yaqoub Mousa Abu Al-Qur’an, was shot and killed after driving his Land Cruiser into the police line in the southern town. Police said that the driver was not on a marked road and sped in their direction from a dry riverbed
Police units were deployed to the Negev settlement before dawn on Wednesday to protect the demolition team from demonstrators who had gathered at the site of the planned eviction. Before the operation was completed, however, a car driven by a terrorist associated with the Islamic Movement rammed a group of officers. Police responded to the attack, shooting and killing the attacker.
