Neria Leiter, an IDF reservist and the son of Israel's ambassador to the United States, Yehiel Leiter, was seriously wounded when a driver accelerated a vehicle into him at the Bell checkpoint, where routes 4436, 4437 and 443 meet in the central West Bank. Leiter was operating alongside a police officer at the time. He was taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, underwent emergency brain surgery, and the hospital said his life remained in danger.
Troops shot and killed the driver at the scene, identified as 29 year old Mahmoud Mohammad Sliman from the village of Beit Ur al Tahta. Ambassador Leiter said he believes in the power of prayer, and that when the people of Israel unite, miracles happen, adding that Neria needs a miracle. Prime Minister Netanyahu visited the family at the hospital before departing for the UN General Assembly.
This is the second time the Leiter family has lost a son to this conflict. Neria's older brother, Major Moshe Yedidya Leiter, a father of six and an aspiring doctor, was killed alongside three reservists in northern Gaza in November 2023. An ambassador representing Israel in Washington is now waiting on a hospital update about a second son, having already buried the first.
The attack landed inside a period the IDF's own figures describe as unusually violent: 67 civilians and security personnel killed in terror attacks recently, 8 security force members killed in clashes during raids on Palestinian towns, and separately, Palestinian security officials say two men from the Nablus area were charged with plotting to assassinate National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, among other attacks, a plot Ben Gvir has called the eleventh against him. A checkpoint named Bell was where the latest of these figures added one more name to it.