Ramallah: An Israeli colonist has fled the scene of an accident after running over a female Palestinian university student who was on her way to college to attend classes.
The 22-year-old Palestinian woman, Zaina Omar Musleh Awad, sustained serious injuries in the incident on Tuesday and has been admitted to hospital.
Sources in Hebron told Gulf News that after striking the woman, the colonist did not stop his vehicle and did not report the accident to the Israeli occupation’s Civil Affairs Liaison Office.
The sources said that the victim had said that she was hit by a colonist but so far there have been no other clues to the identity of the vehicle’s owner. The sources claimed that Hebron and Beit Ummar residents have joined forces to collect all the possible information about the driver in question. The sources said that in some cases Israeli colonists surrender to Civil Affairs Liaison Office, under claims that the colonists cannot hand themselves in to the Palestinian security apparatus that polices parts of the West Bank, and then the Israeli side reports the case to its Palestinian counterpart. The sources expressed concerns about the high speeds at which colonists drive in the presence of school children and university students, even during the rush hours.
The sources stressed that tens of Palestinian boys and girls have been hit by speeding colonists who would not surrender to Israeli authorities unless Palestinian witnesses report the drivers’ plate numbers to the authorities.
The sources urged the Palestinian authorities to address the issue of the colonists’ high driving speed with the Israeli side during their meetings at the Civil Affairs Liaison Office and develop some recommendations to reduce the number of casualties on the highways and the main streets which connect Palestinians and the Israeli colonists.
