The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it killed two Palestinian terrorists in the Gush Etzion area of the West Bank on August 30. The deaths came after two separate but possibly linked car bombs detonated around the same time. In the first incident, a car exploded at a gas station near the Gush Etzion junction where troops shot dead a terrorist, the IDF said. In the second incident, a Palestinian rammed a car through the entrance to the nearby settlement of Karmei Tzur. One of the members of the local security team, in his own car, crashed into the attacker and killed him. A short while later, the assailant’s car exploded due to a bomb planted in it. The commander of the IDF’s Etzion Regional Brigade, Col. Gal Rich, was wounded in the gas station incident, a military source said. Israeli news channel Kan reported that “the car that entered Karmei Tzur was booby-trapped and exploded inside the settlement.”
