Israel says it lacks evidence to try suspects in Palestinian home arson

A Palestinian driver ran over and injured two Israeli soldiers in the West Bank Friday before being shot dead, Israeli security services said.

“Two assailants stabbed a soldier in Hebron”.

“In response forces on site fired at the assailant”, it added.

The soldier suffered moderate wounds.

Also Friday, two Palestinians attacked a soldier with knives in Hebron, the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank, wounding him before Israeli troops shot and killed them, the military said.

A wave of violence since October 1 has so far claimed the lives of more than 120 people, including 107 Palestinians and 17 Israelis.

Police said the alleged attacker had been killed.

An estimated 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the Palestinian territories, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in contravention of global law. Most of the attackers in the recent violence have been young Palestinians, including teenagers.

The arson attack in July took place in the West Bank village of Duma where assailants, believed to be Jewish extremists, lobbed a firebomb during the night into the Dawabsheh family’s home, where four family members were asleep.

The Associated Press (AP) reported that the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, said Thursday it had arrested a number of youths belonging to a “Jewish terrorist” organisation and that interrogators were checking “concrete suspicions” they were connected to the Duma attack.

“A gunman stopped at a checkpoint near Hizmeh, exited his vehicle and shot forces at the site”, the statement said.

The soldiers fired dozens of gas bombs, many of which were fired directly into Palestinian homes where women and children had sheltered to escape the gas in the streets.

Israel says Palestinian incitement has fuelled the attacks.

Israel faces mounting pressure to bring the perpetrators of the July attack in the occupied West Bank to justice, with a United Nations envoy on yesterday expressing concern over the “slow progress” in the probe.

Earlier this week, a civilian court in Jerusalem court found two ultra-Orthodox Israeli minors guilty of burning to death a Palestinian teenager, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, in 2014. The others died in clashes with Israeli forces.