(AhlulBayt News Agency) - A six-year-old Palestinian girl was run over and killed by an Israeli settler Saturday evening in the village of al-Khader south of Bethlehem, on the road to the illegal Israeli settlement of Efrat in the southern occupied West Bank.
locals said the girl was standing on the sidewalk in front of her house when a fast-moving vehicle approached and hit her. The impact reportedly broke her neck.
An Israeli police spokesperson claimed that girl had been killed in a "road accident," but said she had been walking across the street alone when she was hit. He also confirmed that the driver turned himself in and that police were investigating the incident. He said the girl was believed to be between four and five years old.
She was identified as Lama Marwan Mousa by the director of the ambulance and emergency department of the Palestinian Red Crescent in Bethlehem Muhammad Awad.
According to Awad, Palestinian Red Crescent crews attempted to reach the scene after receiving a call about the accident, however ambulances from Israel’s emergency services Magen David Adom arrived first, attempted to revive her, and evacuated Lama to an unknown destination and declared her dead shortly after.
The Palestinian Red Crescent then arranged to transfer Lama’s body to the Beit Jala Governmental Hospital.
There have been scores of “hit and run” incidents targeting Palestinians in different parts of the occupied West Bank, with most of them largely going uninvestigated by Israeli authorities. Some of such events have even resulted in fatalities.
On August 10, an Israeli settler, riding a motorbike, ran over 85-year-old Moussa Muhammad Salman near the city of Khirbat al-Marajim.
Hasan Faraj, a relative of Salman, said the elderly man succumbed to the injuries he had sustained after he was admitted to al-Najah National University Hospital in Nablus.
According to the latest figures released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Israeli settlers have carried out at least 71 attacks on Palestinians and their property in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem al-Quds, so far this year, compared to a total of 221 such attacks in 2015.
However, the perpetrators of such acts of violence are rarely punished, with Israeli police closing most cases without an indictment.
This comes as the occupied territories have witnessed new tensions ever since Israeli forces introduced restrictions on the entry of Palestinian worshipers into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in August 2015.
Nearly 240 Palestinians have lost their lives at the hands of Israeli forces in the tensions since the beginning of last October. The violence has also killed at least 32 Israelis, two Americans, an Eritrean and a Sudanese.
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