Today’s death toll in the Middle East has risen to five after a Palestinian gunman was shot dead by an Israeli member of the public who reacted to an attack on a bus-stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem.
It is understood the man opened fire at an Israeli bus stop in Neve Yaakov, a Jewish settlement which Israel regards as a northern neighbourhood this evening before being shot himself. It is thought that a second gunman escaped capture.
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Palestinian Maysoun Hayek holds her newborn baby girl, Fidaa, in her bed in Rafidea hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus. She was wounded and her husband was killed by Israeli soldiers while driving to the hospital to give birth.
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Earlier in the day, four people were killed, two shot by the Israeli army and two shot by Palestinian militants.
The two Israelis were shot on a West Bank road near Bethlehem when gunmen opened fire on their convoy, which was travelling between the Jewish settlements of Nokdim and Tekoa near Palestinian-ruled Bethlehem.
The shootings followed the killing this morning of a Palestinian man and the wounding of his pregnant wife by the Israeli army. He was driving his wife to hospital where she later gave birth.
Israeli military sources said soldiers also shot dead a woman who allegedly rushed at soldiers waving a knife at a checkpoint near the West Bank town of Tulkarm early today. She ignored warnings to stop, they said.
Palestinian security and hospital sources said Israeli soldiers opened fire on a car at a roadblock near the Balata refugee camp on the outskirts of the city of Nablus, killing Mr Mohammed Hayek (24) and wounding his pregnant wife, Maysoun, (20) in the shoulder.
The woman said her father-in-law had also been seriously hurt in the incident and that the car had been shot at by tanks. She said they had earlier passed one checkpoint without incident.
Israeli military sources confirmed the man's death, saying soldiers had "signalled a car to stop at a roadblock near the Nablus refugee camp of Balata but the car reversed and tried to circumvent the roadblock and the soldiers opened fire".
The area, which is normally under Palestinian rule, is tense after Israeli soliders raided several houses in Balata last week, looking for militants involved in a 17-month-old uprising against Israeli occupation.
In a similar incident yesterday, another pregnant woman was slightly wounded and gave birth in hospital hours later, Palestinian sources said.