The son of Israel’s ambassador to the United States is in critical condition after a Palestinian man deliberately drove his vehicle into a military checkpoint in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday afternoon.
Neria Leiter, who serves as a reservist in the Israeli military, was struck near the settlement of Beit Horon along a major highway connecting Jerusalem to Tel Aviv. His father, Ambassador Yechiel Leiter, posted on social media that his son “needs a miracle.”
Israeli forces at the scene shot and killed the attacker identified by the Palestinian Health Ministry as Mahmoud Suleiman as he attempted to flee following the ramming. Additional military units were deployed to the area in the hours after the attack.
Emergency paramedics from the Magen David Adom service found Neria Leiter unconscious at the scene and rushed him to a Jerusalem hospital. Israeli President Isaac Herzog described the young soldier as “fighting for his life” in a social media statement.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu traveled to the hospital Wednesday night to meet with the Leiter family before departing for the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Netanyahu and Herzog both publicly expressed their hopes for Neria’s recovery.
The attack carries a particularly painful weight for Ambassador Leiter, whose older son Moshe Yedidya Leiter was killed fighting in Gaza in the days immediately following the Hamas-led October 7 2023 attack that ignited the ongoing war.
The West Bank has seen a significant surge in deadly violence since the Gaza conflict began. Earlier this week a separate shooting attack in the West Bank killed an Israeli man. Recent months have brought escalating incidents including Palestinian attacks on Israelis and increased settler violence against Palestinian communities.
Wednesday’s ramming occurred just after Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, adding a somber dimension to the timing of the assault.
Ambassador Leiter has been a prominent diplomatic figure in recent months. In April he played a central role in the first direct diplomatic talks between Israel and Lebanon in decades. In late June he joined Lebanon’s ambassador and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in announcing a framework peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon following renewed conflict with the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
The attack comes as world leaders gather in New York for the U.N. General Assembly where the Iran war launched jointly by Israel and the United States in February remains a central topic of discussion among global diplomats.