Palestinian motorist shot after ramming Israeli troops — army

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A Palestinian motorist injured three Israeli soldiers in a ramming attack in the occupied West Bank on Thursday and was then shot and wounded by troops, security sources said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to the incident as terrorism. It was not immediately clear if the Palestinian, who was in Israeli custody, had militant links.

Two of the injured soldiers were in critical condition and the third was lightly hurt, an Israeli ambulance service said.

A Palestinian medic at the scene told Reuters the motorist, aged 40, was seriously wounded after being shot three times and overturning his car. A Palestinian security source identified him as a resident of a West Bank village near Jerusalem.

With peace talks stalled since April 2014, grassroots violence has simmered in the West Bank and adjacent East Jerusalem, among territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war and where Palestinians seek statehood.

Last Friday, suspected Jewish attackers torched a Palestinian home in the West Bank, killing an 18-month-old boy and seriously injuring his parents and brother.

On Monday, two Israelis were hurt when a petrol bomb was thrown at their vehicle in East Jerusalem.