JERUSALEM: A Palestinian driver died Tuesday after he was shot by an Israeli policeman at a checkpoint in the West Bank in what police said was an attempted attack on Israeli military personnel.
Israeli police said the driver attempted to run over a member of the paramilitary border police at the checkpoint east of Jerusalem and an officer at the scene opened fire at the vehicle.
The driver later died of his wounds and the border police officer suffered minor injuries, police said.
Police did not immediately release video of the incident, and there was no way to independently verify the account.
But police released a photo that appeared to show the vehicle after it had collided into the checkpoint.
In recent years, Israel has seen car-ramming attacks, shootings and stabbings carried out mostly by lone Palestinian attackers with no apparent links to armed groups.
Palestinians and human rights groups have also accused Israeli security forces of using excessive force, or in some cases opening fire at cars that merely lost control.
Tuesday’s incident came as the Israeli government says it is advancing plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank in line with the Trump administration’s Mideast plan as early as July 1.
The Israeli annexation proposal has outraged the Palestinian leadership, which has rejected the Trump plan out of hand, and drawn condemnation from much of the international community.
Israeli police say Palestinian shot dead at checkpoint
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Israeli police say Palestinian shot dead at checkpoint
- The man ‘drove his vehicle quickly toward’ a border police officer
Two Tunisia columnists handed over three years in prison
- Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies have already been in detention for almost two years
- They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering
TUNIS: Two prominent Tunisian columnists were sentenced on Thursday to three and a half years in prison each for money laundering and tax evasion, according to a relative and local media.
The two men, Mourad Zeghidi and Borhen Bsaies, have already been in detention for almost two years for statements considered critical of President Kais Saied’s government, made on radio, television programs and social media.
They were due to be released in January 2025 but have remained in custody on charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
“Three and a half years for Mourad and Borhen,” Zeghidi’s sister, Meriem Zeghidi Adda, wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
Since Saied’s power grab, which granted him sweeping powers on July 25, 2021, local and international NGOs have denounced a regression of rights and freedoms in Tunisia.
Dozens of opposition figures and civil society activists are being prosecuted under a presidential decree officially aimed at combatting “fake news” but subject to a very broad interpretation denounced by human rights defenders.
Others, including opposition leaders, have been sentenced to heavy prison terms in a mega-trial of “conspiracy against state security.”
In 2025, Tunisia fell 11 places in media watchdog Reporters Without Borders’ (RSF) World Press Freedom Index, dropping from 118th to 129th out of 180 countries.
