Palestinian 'car-rammer' identified as 23-year-old Malek Hamed

The Palestinian driver of an alleged car-ramming attack that left one Israeli settler dead and injured another on Thursday morning has been identified as a 23-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank.

Malek Ahmad Moussa Hamed killed one Israeli settler, aged 20 and injured another, aged 19.

The incident took place next to a bus stop outside Ofra, a settlement north of Ramallah.

Israeli forces opened fire on Hamed's car and detained him, although there is no word whether he was injured in the shooting.

This is the second fatal attack on Israelis in the West Bank this year, after a Palestinian killed four Israeli soldiers in a truck-ramming attack in Jerusalem on 8 January.

A wave of clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli settlers in October 2015, but in recent months the occupied territories have been quieter. The violence coincided with a sharp increase in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

According to Israel's Bureau of Statistics, Israeli settlement construction in the occupied West Bank increased by 219 percent in the first quarter of 2015 alone.

So far, the confrontations have claimed the lives of 259 Palestinians, with the vast majority being killed by Israeli troops and settlers, while  41 Israelis, two Americans, one Jordanian, an Eritrean and a Sudanese have also been left dead, according to a count by AFP.

Twenty-three-year-old Malek Ahmad Moussa Hamed [Twitter]