Israeli police accidentally kill young girl after ‘ramming attack’ on West Bank checkpoint
Israeli police have accidentally killed a young Palestinian girl after opening fire on a car suspected of a ramming attack, emergency services in Israel have said.
The border police said they fatally shot the girl, reported to be three or four years old, after firing at a couple in a car who, they said, rammed into two Israeli officers at a West Bank checkpoint.
The unidentified girl was in a van in front of the car which ploughed into the crossing near the Palestinian village of Biddu, just northwest of Jerusalem on Sunday evening.
Video footage from a security camera appeared to show a white car being driven into a pair of Israeli police officers at the checkpoint.
Police then chased after the vehicle, opening fire.
They hit a man and a woman inside the car, along with the girl in the vehicle in front, police said.
Israeli paramedics gave her age as three but Palestinian sources told the official Palestinian news agency, WAFA, that she was four.
She was treated at the scene but pronounced dead by Israeli doctors, the Israeli ambulance services said, without giving the cause of death.
A female officer in the paramilitary border police was also lightly wounded, paramedics said.
A member of Israeli security forces at the scene
The West Bank checkpoint where the girl was killed. Pic: AP
The Israeli police said in a statement a car with a man and a woman stopped at a crossing near Jerusalem and committed a ramming attack against border police, who responded with live fire.
The suspected attackers were “neutralised”, the police said, without providing details.
Palestinian sources told WAFA that the couple were also killed in the shooting.
‘Dire situation’ elsewhere in West Bank after clash
Earlier, the Israeli army said one of its helicopters attacked Palestinians who were throwing explosives at Israeli vehicles in Jenin, also in the West Bank.
Seven Palestinians were killed in the airstrike, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
Mujahhid Nazal, a doctor at a nearby clinic who rushed to the scene, said: “It was a really dire situation, seven young men were lying on the ground.”
Violence erupted after a policeman was killed and three others were injured when a roadside bomb exploded near an Israeli security vehicle.
People inspect the site of an Israeli airstrike in the West Bank city of Jenin. Pic: AP
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Funeral for Palestinians killed in West Bank
Tensions have increased in the West Bank since Israel invaded Gaza.
The war there is nearing the three-month mark and has killed more than 22,800 people, more than two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry. Its count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Some 85% of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes and squeezed into small slivers of the territory. Israel’s siege has caused a humanitarian crisis, with a quarter of the population starving because not enough supplies are entering the area, according to the UN.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after its 7 October attack, in which militants killed around 1,200 people and abducted approximately 240 others.
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Netanyahu aide hopes war has reached ‘beginning of the end’
Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Sky News on Sunday that Israeli forces had finished dismantling Hamas in northern Gaza.
Mr Regev suggested this “success” could mean the “beginning of the end” for the war.
He said any rebuilding and return of Palestinians to the area would “have to wait for the end of combat operations”.
However, he said there was hope that Palestinians could go back to their homes “in the not too distant future”.
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Mark Regev hopes the war is getting closer to ending
The adviser also said he agreed with Antony Blinken – the US secretary of state – who said earlier that there have been too many civilian deaths in Gaza.
“We didn’t want to see a single civilian death, and we’ve tried to make a maximum effort to avoid civilian deaths,” Mr Regev told Sky News.
He claimed the number of civilians getting caught in the crossfire “has been going down”.
Questioned on whether there was any disagreement between Israel and the US on post-conflict security, after Mr Blinken said Washington “had a vision” for Gaza’s future, Mr Regev said the two countries agreed on the “overall strategy” to ensure Hamas is “destroyed”.
“There can be no answers on what comes afterwards,” he said.
“We would like to see a government by Palestinians, for Palestinians… that insists on the demilitarisation of the Gaza Strip and de-radicalisation.”
World
Trump criticises Putin after potentially ‘historic’ meeting with Zelenskyy before Pope’s funeral
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
Follow live updates: 200,000 mourn at Vatican
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which began in February 2022.
Mr Trump has claimed a deal to end the war is “very close” and has urged Mr Zelenskyy to “get it done” in a post on his Truth Social platform.
He has previously warned both sides his administration would walk away from its efforts to achieve a peace if the two sides do not agree a deal soon.
Meanwhile, the Polish armed forces said a Russian military helicopter violated its airspace over the Baltic Sea on Friday evening.
“The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is testing the readiness of our air defence systems,” they said in a post on X.
On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
Leaning forward hands together in their laps, Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy stare at each other in one photo.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.
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