Yesterday’s hit and run incident that critically injured one IDF soldier and moderately wounded two others is looking more likely to have been an accident, security sources indicate.
A senior Israeli official said Thursday the incident first appeared to have been a second vehicular terror attack near the Palestinian Authority Arab town of El Aroub, a community crowded up along Highway 60. But investigators are now exploring the possibility that the suspects involved in the incident did not intend to hit their victims.
This morning (Thursday, Nov. 6) 23-year-old Hamam Jamal Badui al-Masalmeh, the driver of the van, turned himself in to the authorities, security officials said. IDF troops visited the family overnight and said they were searching for their son.
A number of people were arrested overnight, by security personnel including Masalmeh’s family members: Jamal Badui Masalmeh, Valid al-Masalma and Ismail Sabhi al-Shalash Masalmeh.
The family told the IDF that the incident was an accident, not an attack. Masalmeh’s uncle Omar told the AFP news agency that his nephew had lost control of the large commercial van that he was driving.
Members of the Combat Engineering Corps 603rd Battalion in Bet Awa, the Southern Hebron Hills region also arrested Masalmeh’s father last night at his home in Bet Awa, soon after the incident, the SAFA news agency reported. There remains a question as to whether he was an accessory to incident.
The vehicle struck the three IDF soldiers as they stood guard near an IDF “pillbox” outpost on Highway 60. The van was later found abandoned in El Aroub with damage to its hood.
