Palestinian taxi driver hit an Israeli border guard Thursday at a roadblock next to the West Bank Jewish settlement of Avnei Hefetz, injuring him seriously, reported Haaretz newspaper.
Investigators described the incident as “unintentional,” said the paper, quoting Israel Radio.
The driver, said the paper, was in police custody.
Israeli police, meanwhile, put up road blocks early Thursday throughout the Tel Aviv area after a failed bomb attack in the city center on Wednesday, said the paper.
Police said a briefcase containing up to two kilograms of explosives was left near a fast-food stand at the intersection of Allenby and Montefiore Streets in Tel Aviv, reported the paper.
Police sources said the bomb was rigged to be operated by cellular phone, a method used in other recent bombing attempts against urban targets, added the paper.
The owner of the food stand noticed the black briefcase and called the police.
Forces quickly arrived on the scene and the bomb squad used a remote-control robot to isolate the bomb, said the paper, adding that the case was moved inside the restaurant and detonated in a controlled explosion. The blast destroyed the food stand but there were no injuries.
Meanwhile, three Palestinians, including two young girls, and an Israeli man were injured as violence erupted in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Two Palestinians were wounded as a gunfight between armed Palestinians and Israeli troops broke out in Rafah on the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt after the army destroyed a Palestinian security post, Palestinian security officials told AFP.
One was hit in the head with shrapnel when the army fired shells and another was shot with a live round in the leg, hospital officials said.
Earlier Wednesday, the army fired shells at a village near Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip in response to gunfire, seriously injuring a five-year-old Palestinian girl, hospital officials said.
One shell landed at the entrance of a kindergarten in the village of Abasan east of Khan Yunis and another damaged a mosque, said the agency.
An army spokeswoman said soldiers returned fire after being shot at but denied using shells.
An Israeli was also injured when he came under fire from Palestinian gunmen while working on a road in Israel near the West Bank town of Qalqilya, the Israeli army said.
The man was shot in the leg and hand.
Following the incident, the regional Palestinian security commander and his Israeli counterpart met and held a joint debriefing of the incident, said Haaretz.
According to Haaretz, the Qalqiliyah sector is considered one of the quietest in the West Bank despite the Intifada raging in other parts of the territories.
Some form of security cooperation remains in the area between Israeli and Palestinian forces. Nonetheless, Colonel Eitan Avraham, commander of the regional military brigade, ordered that a siege be re-imposed on the Palestinian city, the paper added.
Meanwhile, a little known militant group calling itself the Palestinian Popular Resistance Forces said in a statement to AFP that it was responsible, claiming the attack was carried out against a Jewish settler living near Qalqilya.
"This action is part of a reaction to the savage escalation and shelling by rockets and the closure and assassinations carried out by the Zionist government against the masses of our people in their attempts to stop the Intifada and resistance," the statement said.
"It is also a message to the new Zionist generals in the government, both Zionist pigs," it added.
In the outskirts of east Jerusalem, an 11-year-old Palestinian girl was lightly injured Wednesday night when Palestinians fired on her father's car as they drove on a road generally used by Israelis near the French Hill settlement neighborhood, police told AFP.
Bullets broke a car window, causing the girl to be cut up by the glass.
Several attacks have occurred in recent weeks at the intersection, as Palestinians target cars with yellow license plates, which indicate Israeli ownership. But Palestinians living in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem also have yellow plates.
On the same road a while later, an Israeli truck was also fired upon, but no one was injured - Albawaba.com
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