Palestinian Is Shot After Bus Rams Vehicle

A Palestinian bus driver today rammed his bus into a car with military license plates, killing a woman passenger, and emerged from his vehicle waving a metal bar before soldiers fatally shot him, police said.

The driver shouted “Allahu Akbar (God is great)” after crashing into the military car and then another vehicle, said Police Inspector Moshe Caspi.

Four people involved in the crashes were injured and treated at a hospital.

The incident occurred less than a mile from an army checkpoint that divides Israel from the occupied Gaza Strip.

Palestinians identified the bus driver as Mohammed Samir Katanani from Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, a center of the uprising against the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

Katanani, 30, had taken Palestinians to see relatives at Ashkelon prison in Israel and was driving an empty bus back to Gaza when he hit the Israeli vehicles, Arab reports said.

He was 1 1/2 miles from the checkpoint when he swerved into the left lane, hitting a Renault with army license plates. In the car was an army officer and his family, Caspi said.

An army statement initially said the wife of an army major was killed, but later reports said the victim was his sister-in-law.

Authorities said Katanani attempted to ram an oncoming car, but missed. The bus then slammed into an Israeli passenger car.