Amichai Atia, 17, was struck and killed by a driver fleeing a confrontation near a mass Selichot gathering. Police classify incident as criminal, not terror.
Amichai Atia, a 17-year-old resident of Itamar and twelfth-grade student at Chitzim Yeshiva, was killed Thursday night in a ramming incident near a mass Selichot gathering in Hadera.
Amichai had traveled with his classmates to attend a Selichot event organized by Olga Yeshiva in partnership with the Hadera municipality. While in the parking area adjacent to the event venue, a driver from the Arab village of Kfar Manda drove at high speed and struck him.
Amichai sustained critical injuries and was evacuated to Hillel Yaffe Medical Center while receiving CPR, where doctors were forced to pronounce him dead. The circumstances of the incident are under intensive investigation by police and the Central Unit in the Menashe District.
Video circulating on social media shows hundreds of teenagers at the Selichot event held in the venue's parking lot. A pickup truck driver is seen unloading merchandise at the location, followed by footage of teenagers confronting him.
The footage shows the driver beginning to flee the scene by driving in reverse, with several youths running after him. During his escape, he struck Amichai. Police are currently classifying the incident as criminal and ruling out suspicion of terrorism, while Amichai's friends emphasize that he himself was not involved in the confrontation that preceded the ramming.
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