The Israeli military said its troops have shot dead a Palestinian who tried to ram a tractor into forces stationed in the West Bank.
The military said its initial investigation revealed that a 35-year-old Palestinian from a village near Hebron tried to run over an officer with a Bobcat tractor. The attacker then turned around and tried to attack nearby Israeli civilians, the military said.
It said a soldier opened fire, killing the assailant. No other injuries were reported.
Hebron is the largest Palestinian city in the West Bank with a population of some 200,000. About 1,000 Israeli settlers live in the heart of the flashpoint city, protected by the Israeli military.
Footage circulating on social media showed Israeli soldiers pulling a man’s body out of a small tractor standing in a street.
On Friday, the Palestinians protested for the 10th week in a row. The military said some hurled grenades and pipe bombs at troops behind the security fence. A 21-year-old woman, who was working as a volunteer paramedic treating wounded protesters, was killed by Israeli fire.
The army said its troops operated "in accordance with standard operating procedures" and that it was investigating the incident.
Health officials and witnesses said Israeli forces shot dead 21-year-old Razan al-Najar, a volunteer medic, as she ran towards the border fence, east of the south Gaza city of Khan Younis, in a bid to reach a casualty.
Thousands of people attended Najar's funeral in Gaza on Saturday, including some she had treated when they were wounded at previous border protests. Her body was wrapped in a
Palestinian flag and carried through the streets on a stretcher by mourners.
Residents said Najar was a popular figure at the protest sites and pictures depicting her as an angel circulated on Palestinian social media.
Her death brought to 119 the number of Palestinians killed in weekly demonstrations launched on March 30 in Gaza.
The Palestinians and human rights groups have accused Israeli forces of using excessive force on some occasions, and of killing Palestinians who did not pose an imminent threat both in the West Bank and Gaza.
The Gaza protests are being organized by the territory's Hamas leadership and are aimed at drawing attention to the decade-old Israeli-Egyptian blockade on the territory. The protesters are also demanding the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war and their descendants. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from what is now Israel during the war that attended its creation. They and their descendants now number over 5 million.
