An Israeli soldier has died after being hit by friendly fire during a Palestinian stabbing attack in the West Bank.

Captain Eliav Gelman, 30 and a father of two, was wounded when soldiers and an armed civilian tried to stop a Palestinian assailant at the Gush Etzion Junction.

According to initial investigations, Gelman, an Air Force captain in the Israeli army’s reserve corps, was attacked by a Palestinian man while standing at a bus stop at the junction.

A statement released by the army said: “IDF forces at the scene responded and in order to thwart the attack fired toward the assailant. Initial investigation suggests that Captain Gelman was injured as a result of the fire”.

The assailant, who has been identified as 26-year-old Mamduh Amro was shot and wounded at the scene, but Cpt Gelman was critically injured and succumbed to his wounds two hours after the attack.

Cpt Gelman’s brother Eyal described him as deeply religious, “loved and loving”.

“He was the best of the group. Eliav was excellent, exact, loved and loving, he was connected to the people of Israel, the land of Israel, the Torah of Israel,” he told reporters in the Shaare Zedek Medical Center, where his brother had been treated.

“He died in a battle we’ve been experiencing for a long time,” he said.

Cpt Gelman is the 29th Israeli to be killed in a Palestinian terror attack since October, plus three non-Israelis. Nearly 170 Palestinians have been killed over the same period.