JERUSALEM (VINnews) — An Israeli citizen was shot and killed Monday morning at a bus stop near the central Israel city of Ra’anana, after an IDF soldier mistook him for a Palestinian terrorist.
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Israel Police reported that the man, a citizen aged around 40, approached the soldier in a “suspicious manner” while the latter was waiting at a bus stop at Ra’anana Junction. The man may have been holding a knife in his hand.
The serviceman, who said he was feeling in danger, shot the suspect and seriously injured him. He was taken to Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba, where medics pronounced him dead.
Police later said that the man was in need of “professional diagnosis” indicating that he had mental health issues which could have caused him to act in an unusual manner.
A passerby in his 50’s also suffered light injuries in the leg due to ricochets from the bullets fired in the incident, according to medics.
Police said there was no suspicion that the dead man had been a terrorist.
The incident was likely to reignite a hotly contested debate about IDF soldiers’ open-fire rules, which many right-wing politicians consider too strict. MK Itamar Ben Gvir, who is seeking to become public security minister in the upcoming government, has vowed to relax open fire rules to allow police and soldiers to more easily use live fire at attackers, including rioters throwing stones and petrol bombs. However this could lead to more cases of mistaken identity shootings.
In 2015, a Jewish man was shot and killed near the Jerusalem central bus station, after the man attacked two soldiers and tried to grab one of the weapons they were carrying, leading them to believe he was a terrorist. The incident occurred during a wave of Palestinian terrorist attacks.