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The scene of the acid attack on Route 60, December 12, 2014. Photo by United Hatzalah
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JERUSALEM (AFP) -- A Palestinian threw acid at a family of Israelis picking up a hitchhiker in the West Bank Friday before being shot and wounded, residents and the army said.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said that a vehicle carrying a family of five picked up a hitchhiker near the tunnel checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

"A vehicle carrying a family with four girls stopped to pick up a hitchhiker" near a checkpoint outside Bethlehem and close to the Gush Etzion settlement area, an army statement said.

A Palestinian man standing next to the hitchhiker threw acid at both him and the family when the car stopped, it said.

Initially the army said the attacker was a hitchhiker but later revised its statement.

Israeli news site Ynet said three young children aged 8-10 suffered light burn wounds and a 40-year-old man suffered burns to his face and eyes.

Another Israeli civilian shot the suspect in the leg as he fled, the Israeli spokeswoman added.

The suspect was identified as Jamal Abd al-Majid Ghayatha, 45, from the village of Nahalin.

Palestinian residents said he was mentally unstable and had received treatment at a mental health clinic in Bethlehem. He had been arrested before, they added.

He was taken to Hadassa hospital for treatment.

Ma'an staff contributed to this report.
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Victims suffer light wounds, emergency services say; suspected assailant was shot and is in moderate condition.

By Gili Cohen , Nir Hasson and Chaim Levinson for Haaretz

A Palestinian man poured acid on a family of Israelis in the West Bank on Friday in a suspected terrorist attack. There were conflicting reports about whether five or six Israelis were wounded.

The victims are said to be lightly wounded.

An Israeli civilian struck the attacker with his car and then shot him. He is in moderate condition, according to Magen David Adom emergency services.

Ma'an News Agency identified the attacker as Jamal Abd al-Majid Ghayatha, 45, from the village of Nahalin. Army sources said he was imprisoned in Israel from 2004-2007 for activities related to Islamic Jihad. Israeli army forces raided his home in Nahalin.

The attack occurred on Route 60 between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, near the Betar Ilit settlement.

Magen David Adom paramedics treated the Israeli victims, who included a 27-year-old man, another man in his 50s, a 52-year-old woman and three girls, aged 11, 12 and 18. The older man was taken to Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, while the rest were taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center.

The victims reported feeling a burning sensation on their skin and in their eyes as well as shortness of breath.

According to an Israel Defense Forces officer, the attacker also tried to stab one of the men with a screwdriver following the acid attack.

A spokesman for the Border Police said soldiers saw a man holding a screwdriver and chasing someone, and by the time they caught up to the attacker, the Israeli civilian had shot him. The attacker is being treated at Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem.

Elsewhere in the West Bank on Friday, a Palestinian driver crashed into concrete barriers at a hitchhiking post near the Samaria Regional Brigade's army base. No Israeli soldiers were hurt in the incident, while the driver was lightly injured.

An initial report from the army said that a Palestinian driver sped toward two soldiers at a bus stop near the army base, south of Nablus. Security forces continue to investigate the incident, and the driver is being interrogated.

Meanwhile, some 600 Palestinians were clashing with Israeli forces in Hebron. Israel Defense Forces soldiers were using crowd-dispersal methods to break up the demonstrations.

Over the past month, 11 people have been killed in Palestinian attacks, mostly in Jerusalem, though there have been other attacks in Tel Aviv and the West Bank.
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JERUSALEM (AFP/Reuters) - A Palestinian described as mentally unstable threw acid at a family of Israelis who gave him a ride in the West Bank Friday before being shot and wounded, residents and the army said.
The incident came as tensions run high in the occupied territories after months of unrest, and after the death of a senior Palestinian official in a confrontation with Israeli troops.
“A vehicle carrying a family with four girls picked up a hitchhiker” near a checkpoint outside Bethlehem and close to the Gush Etzion settlement area, an army statement said. “The hitchhiker threw acid on the passengers, injuring them lightly.” The attacker got out of the vehicle and was shot in the leg by a civilian and arrested. It was unclear how seriously he was wounded.
Israeli public radio said a man and three children were injured in the attack. The Israelis were taken to hospital, an AFP photographer said, and emergency services confirmed they had suffered light wounds.
Palestinians residents named the attacker as Jamal Ghayyada, 46, from the nearby village of Nahalin, saying he was mentally unstable and had received treatment at a mental health clinic in Bethlehem. He had been arrested before, they added. The incident came at a time of high tensions in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, where a senior Palestinian official died in a confrontation with Israeli troops on Wednesday. The Palestinian leadership blamed Israel for Ziad Abu Ein’s death and has threatened a response, amid speculation the Palestinian Authority would suspend security coordination with Israel in the West Bank.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, several Palestinian protesters were lightly to moderately wounded during clashes with Israeli troops, Palestinian security and medical sources said.
Meanwhile, Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said he supported Egypt’s crackdown on tunnels linking the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to the Sinai Peninsula and any other action the country took to protect itself from militants, according to a media report Thursday.
“We have supported all the precautionary measures taken by the Egyptian authorities to close the tunnels and stop the trafficking of arms and the passage of people between Gaza and the Sinai,” Abbas said in an interview with Egyptian magazine Al-Ahram Al-Arabi due to be published on Saturday, extracts of which were published by MENA news agency.
“We will continue to support any measure protecting Egypt from danger,” Abbas was quoted as saying.
Since the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi by the Egyptian army, the country’s new authorities have accused Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood of conspiring with Hamas.
The Egyptian military has stepped up the destruction of tunnels from Gaza that it says are used by the Palestinian Islamist movement to smuggle arms, food and money.
The army says it has destroyed more than 1,600 such tunnels since Morsi’s ouster.
Egypt has also begun setting up a buffer zone along its border with the Gaza Strip, which will see hundreds of homes demolished, in order to prevent militant infiltration and arms smuggling.
Bitter rivals Hamas, the de facto rulers of Gaza, and Abbas’s Fatah movement, which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, agreed on a national unity government earlier this year but reconciliation efforts have repeatedly hit stumbling blocks.
Cairo also suspects Hamas militants of helping militants carry out a spate of deadly attacks against Egyptian security forces in the Sinai Peninsula recently.
In one such attack in late October, at least 30 soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing in the Sinai Peninsula.
“If it is proved that Hamas members are implicated in terrorist attacks against Egypt, it has the right to go after them and punish them,” Abbas said, according to MENA.
Militants say they are taking revenge against a police crackdown on Morsi supporters that has left more than 1,400 dead.

Moreover, unidentified assailants opened fire on the Israeli embassy in Athens with a Kalashnikov assault rifle in the early hours of Friday, police said, but no injuries or damage were reported.
Four people on two motorcycles fired shots at the embassy building in a northern suburb of Athens, a police official said. Bullets were lodged in the walls and 54 spent bullet cases were found about 40 metres (yards) from the building, police said.
The governmnent condemned the attack saying it was an attempt to create instability at a “tough” moment for the country.
Greece wants to exit an unpopular EU/IMF bailout and has pushed forward a presidential vote in parliament which could trigger snap elections.
“Any terrorist attack hitting at the heart of democracy hits the heart of the country,” government spokeswoman Sofia Voultepsi said.
Police cordoned off the area around the embassy, which has not been a target in other acts of violence in Greece in recent years as an economic crisis raises social and political tensions.
Shots were also fired at the German ambassador’s residence in Athens a year ago. Ballistic tests showed that the same weapons were used in both attacks, police said.
A Greek urban guerrilla group, the People’s Fighters Group, claimed responsibility in February for the gun attack on the German ambassador’s residence.
The same group claimed an attack on the headquarters of Prime Minister Antonis Samaras’ New Democracy party.
Bomb and arson attacks that cause little damage and rarely injure are common in Greece, which has a long history of political violence. The attacks have picked up in recent years as the country has imposed austerity cuts to tackle its deepest economic crisis since World War Two.