JERUSALEM - A Palestinian man sprayed acid on six members of an Israeli family in the West Bank on Friday after he tried to get a ride in their car, wounding several of them lightly, according to the Israeli military.
The assailant was then shot and wounded by an Israeli passer-by as he tried to attack the driver with a screwdriver, the military said. The events took place on a main road near the Palestinian town of Husan in the Etzion settlement bloc south of Jerusalem.
This was latest in a wave of attacks carried out by lone Palestinians, though the first to involve acid. Eleven people have been killed in recent weeks by Palestinians using vehicles, knives, meat cleavers and guns as weapons.
Israeli-Palestinian tensions have been running high against the background of a dispute over a revered holy site in Jerusalem and over the death this week of a senior Palestinian official after an altercation with Israeli security forces at a West Bank demonstration, during which he was shoved, grabbed by the throat and struck in the chest, according to witnesses.
Israeli pathologists said the official, Ziad Abu Ein, 55, died after a heart attack most likely brought on by stress, and that he had heart disease. But Palestinian officials have blamed the death on rough treatment at the hands of the Israeli security forces and said they held Israel accountable.
The acid-throwing assailant was identified by the Palestinian news media as Jamal Abd al-Majid Ghiada, 45, a resident of Nahalin, a village in the area. Mr. Ghiada was arrested by Israeli soldiers at the scene and taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment. The passengers in the car - parents, three daughters and a niece, according to the Israeli news media - were not immediately identified.
While Jewish settlers routinely hitch rides from one another, it would be considered more unusual for a Jewish family to pick up a Palestinian man they did not know, especially given the current tensions. Friday's episode took place not far from where Palestinians kidnapped and killed three Israeli teenagers in June as they were hitchhiking home for the weekend.
Entities 0 Name: Israeli Count: 7 1 Name: Palestinian Count: 3 2 Name: JERUSALEM Count: 3 3 Name: West Bank Count: 2 4 Name: Israel Count: 1 5 Name: Ziad Abu Ein Count: 1 6 Name: Israeli-Palestinian Count: 1 7 Name: Ghiada Count: 1 8 Name: Nahalin Count: 1 9 Name: Husan Count: 1 10 Name: Jamal Abd al-Majid Ghiada Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1yCiR2b Title: Palestine minister's autopsy results disputed Description: A Palestinian official has said that the autopsy on Ziad Abu Ein's body proves that Israel's actions led to the death of a Palestinian minister, while Israel disagrees with the findings of the same autopsy. Abu Ein died on Wednesday shortly after an Israeli border policeman shoved and grabbed him by the throat during a protest in the occupied West Bank.
