The Hawara IDF checkpoint in Judea and Samaria. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

The Palestinian Authority described the running-over and shooting a 16-year-old Palestinian assailant near the West Bank city of Nablus as a “brutal war crime against humanity and childhood,” Palestinian Wafa News Agency reported.

Among the Palestinian allegations were claims that Israel has fabricated many of the recent stabbing attacks, to justify the killing of innocent Palestinians. The PA also said Israelis have planted knives next to the bodies of dead Palestinians to support its allegations that it was killing assailants mid-attack.

“[Israel] has mastered the art of distorting the truth to mask its crimes by accusing every [Palestinian] victim of plotting a stabbing attack and planting a knife next to the body to support its allegations,” said a PA statement, according to Wafa.

The Palestinian claims that Israel made up the attack story in question contradict Israeli eyewitness reports that 16-year-old Ashraqat Qatannani was attempting to knife Israelis waiting near a bus stop and hitchhiking post near the Hawara check point — an Israeli security outpost — in the West Bank near the PA-controlled city of Nablus.

The man who ran over Qatannani was former head of the northern West Bank Samaria Regional Council, Gershon Mesika. According to The Jerusalem Post, Mesika said he decided to run the girl over when he heard shots of “terrorist, terrorist!” and saw somebody running after a young woman. Another bystander said she saw the Palestinian teenager with a knife, according to the report.

According to Reuters, eighty-six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces and civilians since October 1, many while carrying out knifing, shooting and car-ramming attacks against Israelis. Twenty Israelis and one American student have been killed by Palestinian terrorists in the same period, in the worst spate of Israeli-Palestinian violence since the launching of Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in summer 2014.