Jerusalem: An Indian-origin Israeli soldier was killed in a vehicle-hit attack near the Bet El settlement on the West Bank. The soldier belonged to the Beni Menashe community. Community members gave this information on Thursday. The Israeli army said that Staff Sergeant Gerry Gideon Hanghal (24) was a soldier in the Nahshon battalion of the Kfir Brigade. He was a resident of Nof HaGalil. Community members told PTI that they were "shocked" by the news of the young man's death near Assaf Junction on Wednesday.

CCTV footage from the scene shows a truck with Palestinian license plates traveling at high speed on a busy highway before stopping and hitting an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) checkpoint near a bus stop. Israeli security sources have named the suspect as 58-year-old Hayil Dhaifallah, a resident of the central West Bank city of Rafat. He said Sergeant Hanghal's funeral will be held on Thursday. Hanghal immigrated to Israel from the northeastern part of India in 2020. It is said that during the current war, about 300 young people from the Beni Menashe community are doing military duty and most of them are serving in combat units.

It is believed that the Beni Menashe, who came from India's north-eastern states of Manipur and Mizoram, are descendants of the Israeli tribe Menasseh. This attack has come after continuous incidents of suicide bombings and firing starting from the West Bank. Islamic Hamas has taken responsibility for this. On October 7 last year, Hamas attacked Israel, after which the war started in Gaza and it is still going on.