Palestinian father of 5 slain by cops after 'road crash'

(MENAFN- Arab News) JERUSALEM: Two Israeli policewomen were injured in annexed east Jerusalem on Wednesday when they were hit by a car driven by a Palestinian who was then shot dead police said.
It was the latest in a string of lone-wolf attacks by Palestinians using cars to ram pedestrians or police a trend which began in Jerusalem in October but has also spread to the West Bank.
The incident took place in A-Tur on the Mount of Olives with police spokeswoman Luba Samri saying the driver veered off the road and struck two border police officers both of them female.
They had earlier been identified as male officers.
'Another border policeman opened fire at the terrorist and neutralized him' Samri said confirming that the driver had died.
The two policewomen were moderately injured and taken to different hospitals in the city she said.
The driver was identified by relatives as 41-year-old Imran Abu Dheim from the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber.
'We're absolutely stunned by what's happened' a cousin of the driver told AFP describing him as a very quiet man with five adult children.
'It was an accident and when he tried to reverse they killed him' he said citing eyewitnesses.
Meanwhile Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called off a proposed plan to segregate Palestinians from Israelis on West Bank buses overruling his own defense minister following a flurry of criticism in an attempt to avert the first crisis of his new government.
An official in the prime minister's office said Netanyahu called Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon to tell him he found his proposal 'unacceptable' and the two then decided to freeze the plan.
Yaalon had launched the three-month pilot program following repeated complaints from Jewish settlers who ride the buses and say the Palestinian workers constitute a security threat and harass female Jewish riders.
Thousands of Palestinians enter Israel for work each day from the West Bank and often return home in buses alongside Jewish settlers. The Palestinian laborers all have security clearance and special permits but the proposed change would have forced them to return home through the same checkpoint they entered and prevented them from riding West Bank buses alongside Israelis.
Critics derided the plan as racist and said it would harm Israel's image which has already been under pressure because of its continued settlement activity in the West Bank. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and Palestinians want it as part of their future state.
'The separation between Palestinians and Jews on public transportation is an unnecessary humiliation and a stain on the face of the country and its citizens' opposition leader Isaac Herzog wrote on his Facebook page. 'It adds unnecessary oil to the bonfire of hate against Israel in the world.'
Zehava Galon leader of the dovish Meretz party went further saying 'This is how apartheid looks.'