The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), along with Israel Police and the IDF have arrested the driver in a hit and run incident earlier this month that left three soldiers wounded, saying that they have determined that it was an intentional attack and not an accident, the security service cleared for publication Thursday night.
The driver, Hamam Masalma, was described by the Shin Bet as a 23-year-old Hamas member from the village of Beit Awwa outside Hebron.
The day after the accident on November 5, Masalma turned himself in to police and claimed it was an accident and he fled because he feared for his life. The Shin Bet said that while under questioning however, he confessed to planning the attack “because of the situation on the ground and after being inspired by the ramming attack in Jerusalem on the same day and seeing the images from Operation Protective Edge”, the Shin Bet said in a statement on Thursday.
The Shin Bet added that an indictment is expected to be issued against Masalma in the coming days.
The news represents an about face of sorts, due to the fact that the day after the attack, security officials told reporters that the incident was most likely a traffic accident, possibly because the driver didn’t fit the profile of an attacker.
The incident took place near al-Arub south of Bethlehem, where the white van driven by Masalma plowed into three soldiers who were standing on the side of the road. All three were rushed to Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem Hospital. One soldier was seriously injured, while another was treated in moderate condition and a third lightly injured.
Surveillance camera footage of the incident shows three soldiers standing on the side of bend in the road at night as a van plows through and hits all three without slowing.
The van was found not long after by IDF troops searching the area, but Masalma was nowhere to be found. The next day he turned himself in to Israeli police and a second man was arrested by security forces.
Hours before the van hit the soldiers, a Palestinian man drove into bystanders at a light rail station in Jerusalem in a separate terror attack that left Border Patrol officer Jedan Assad from the Druse village of Beit Jann dead and over a dozen wounded. The driver, named as 48-year-old Ibrahim al-Akary from Shuafat in east Jerusalem, was killed at the scene by police.