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.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has directly called on his US and Chinese counterparts to join his latest summit for peace in Ukraine.
Speaking from Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine on Friday, Mr Zelenskyy announced a “global peace summit”, co-hosted by Switzerland, starting on 15 June.
He claimed 80 countries have already confirmed their attendance.
But he said: “I am appealing to the global leaders of the world who are still outside the global efforts of the global peace summit.
“To President Biden, the leader of the United States, and to President Xi, the leader of China, we do not want the UN charter to be burned.
“Please show your leadership in advancing the peace.”
Residents evacuated from a building hit by strikes in Kharkiv on Saturday. Pic: Reuters
He added that it must be “real peace – not just a pause in the strikes” after various ceasefire breaches by the Russians.
Finally, he urged: “The efforts of the global majority are the best guarantee that all commitments will be fulfilled.”
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Shopping mall hit by strike in Kharkiv on Saturday. Pic: Reuters
Printworks and shopping centre targeted this week
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, with a pre-war population of 1.5 million people, is close to the frontline, and has been consistently targeted since the initial invasion in February 2022.
On Thursday, its ‘Vivat’ printworks, which is the country’s largest, was hit by missiles, killing seven people, and destroying an estimated 50,000 books. A further 21 people were injured, Ukrainian officials said.
On Saturday, a strike on a shopping centre killed six people, injured 40, and left a further 16 unaccounted for, local authorities said.
Elsewhere in the city, an additional 11 people were injured as a result of strikes, including a 13-year-old boy.
Just over the border, in Russia’s Belgorod region, the regional governor there said four residents died as a result of Ukrainian attacks on Saturday.
Aftermath of Russian strike on Kharkiv on Saturday. Pic: Reuters
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Mr Zelenskyy warned a new Russian offensive is being planned northwest of Kharkiv.
Ukrainians and military analysts have repeatedly warned of depleting weapon supplies on the frontline.
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Earlier this month the US agreed to a further $2bn (£1.6bn) in military support for Ukraine.
It has consistently resisted calls to send US troops there, in line with NATO’s refusal for direct involvement in the conflict.
China has resisted calls by NATO and its member states to take a direct stance against Russia in support of Ukraine.
President Xi hosted Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a show of “friendship” earlier this month.
Hamas has launched rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza for the first time in months.
The barrage of rockets set off air raid sirens in cities as far away as Tel Aviv.
There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage in what appeared to be the first long-range rocket attack from Gaza since January, although Palestinian militants have continued to sporadically fire rockets and mortar rounds at communities along the Gaza border since then.
Hamas’s military wing claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Israeli military said eight projectiles crossed into Israel after being launched from the area of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where Israeli forces recently launched an incursion.
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At least six newborn babies have died after a fire broke out at a children’s hospital in India, according to reports.
Firefighters said they carried 12 newborns out of the centre in the Vivek Vihar district of east New Delhi late on Saturday night, but five of them died due to smoke inhalation.
Two other infants are believed to have already died, according to local media. There are differing reports as to whether six or seven infants have been killed so far.
Another five survived and are being treated in a nearby hospital, Delhi fire department chief Atul Garg said.
The blaze, which broke out on the first floor of the hospital, was put out after about an hour.
Burnt registration cards lie on the floor of the hospital. Pic: AP
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Mr Garg told the ANI news agency that an oxygen cylinder blast was the likely cause of the fire, but there has been no official confirmation.
“It was a very tough operation,” he was quoted as saying by India Today.
“We made two teams. One team started firefighting because there was a blast of cylinders. We can say it was a chain of blasts of cylinders.
“We had to save ourselves also. We started rescue operations for babies as well. Unfortunately, we could not save all the children… That is a regrettable incident.”
The owner of the baby hospital has fled, according to Delhi police.
Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s chief minister, called the fire “heartbreaking”, adding that the “causes of the incident are being investigated and whoever is responsible for this negligence will not be spared”.
Machines move debris after a fire in Rajkot. Pic: Reuters
Earlier on Saturday, at least 27 people were killed in a fire at a crowded amusement park in the city of Rajkot in Gujarat state in western India.
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