JERUSALEM - Two Palestinians tried on Friday to run down Israeli police and soldiers in the occupied West Bank, with one attacker shot dead and the other wounded, Israeli officials said.
And in the Gaza Strip, soldiers shot dead a Palestinian and wounded dozens more in border clashes, the Gaza health ministry said.
Near the village of Silwad, northwest of the West Bank city of Ramallah, a man was killed as he tried unsuccessfully to steer his vehicle into a group of border police and soldiers who were engaged at the time in a clash with Palestinians, police said.
A statement said that the Israeli forces saw him coming and took cover behind a concrete barrier, escaping injury. “They opened fire at the terrorist... He was declared dead at the scene,” the statement said.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian protester and wounded another 41 people during clashes along the border with Israel, the Palestinian health ministry said.
Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told AFP that Mahmud al-Agha, 20, was killed, while 31 of the wounded were hit by live fire and the other 10 by rubber bullets.
A wave of violence has claimed the lives of 122 on the Palestinian side, 17 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean since the start of October.
Many of the Palestinians killed have been attackers, while others have been shot dead by Israeli security forces during clashes.
Earlier Friday in the West Bank, a Palestinian driver tried unsuccessfully to run down Israeli security forces before he was shot, wounded and arrested, police said.
“A Palestinian terrorist... drove at speed toward police and soldiers in an attempt to ram them”, before his vehicle hit a concrete pillar and he got out and ran toward them, shouting, police said.
“A guard fired at his lower body and wounded him,” it said, adding that he was treated at the scene and placed under arrest.
Police said the guards had first fired warning shots in the air and ordered the man to stop.
The incident occurred at the Qalandiya checkpoint, near Ramallah and close to Qalandiya refugee camp, where soldiers on Wednesday shot dead two Palestinians who tried to ram their cars into troops in separate attacks.
An AFP journalist at the scene of the Qalandiya incident said the wounded Palestinian could be seen sitting on a stretcher as security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse journalists.
The site is close to the family home of 14-year-old Hadeel Awwad, shot dead by an Israeli policeman after stabbing and wounding a man in a Jerusalem market last month.
Israeli authorities finally released her body on Friday to enable the family to bury her and ahead of the funeral young Palestinians hurled stones at soldiers, who responded by firing tear gas.
In the southern West Bank, soldiers shot a Palestinian in the head, seriously wounding him, during clashes near the flashpoint city of Hebron, the Palestinian Red Crescent said.
Palestinians have grown frustrated with Israel’s occupation, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership, while international efforts to restore calm have so far failed.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan has won formal approval to join the World Trade Organisation in a move the US-backed government hopes will help lift its war-shattered economy and create jobs in one of the world’s poorest countries.
Afghanistan has until June 30 to ratify the agreement, the final step before becoming a full member of the organisation that underpins the global system of international trade.
“Trade-led growth will create new economic opportunities and jobs, especially for women; it will reduce poverty, and increase prosperity,” said Afghanistan’s Deputy Chief Executive Mohammad Khan Rahmani, in a speech at a WTO meeting in Nairobi where the agreement was passed.
“It will certainly contribute in a major way to dramatically reduce extremism and achieve regional peace and security,” he said.
Coming after the launch of the TAPI gas pipeline linking Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, the WTO deal is the second big economic agreement for the government this week but the obstacles to growth remain daunting.
Decades of war have destroyed much of Afghanistan’s basic infrastructure and fostered a climate of insecurity and corruption that has put investors to flight and forced millions of Afghans to become refugees.
Once a major horticultural exporter that accounted for 10 percent of the world’s dried fruit market in the 1970s, Afghanistan’s import-dependent economy, kept afloat by billions of dollars in foreign aid, is among the world’s least developed.
The World Bank’s 2015 Doing Business report, which measures how easy it is for companies to operate, puts it at 183 out of 189 countries and growth last year was just 1.3 percent, far too slow to provide enough jobs for its fast-growing population.
Aid donors are putting much effort into re-establishing the agricultural sector and developing products like almonds, raisins and pistachios as well as traditional export pillars such as woollen carpets.
The government has also pledged an ambitious series of reforms to revive the economy, fight corruption and attract investment.
But the World Bank warned in a report from October that the government’s reform efforts would take time to have an impact and it was still unclear whether they would mitigate the worsening security climate.