Israeli troops shot and killed a Jerusalem resident at the Betar Illit-area military checkpoint west of Bethlehem on Tuesday morning.

The Palestinian, identified as 27-year-old Walid Rabi At-Tawil, allegedly refused to stop his car after being ordered to do so by Israeli forces manning the post.

In a statement, the Israeli military said At-Tawil "ignored calls to undergo the required security checks, accelerated towards the soldiers and drove through the crossing." It said soldiers chased after the vehicle, which they said they found it at a nearby gas station.

Soldiers reportedly told At-Tawil to stop the car, shot in the air, and then at the tires of his car. The shots to the tires allegedly failed to stop the vehicle with which At-Tawil "attempted to run over IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers."

He was then shot and killed, the military said.

The incident occurred near the illegal settlement of Betar Illit that lies about half a kilometer from Israel's border on the western side of the separation wall. Among the largest in the West Bank, it is home to some 35,000 predominantly ultra-Orthodox settlers.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, construction workers began building dozens of housing units in what appeared to be a new "neighborhood" on a hill outside the settlement's main area, according to the Israeli daily Haaretz.

The newspaper reported that the additions did not appear on a list of 455 housing units approved by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak two weeks earlier, which came in advance of a proposed slowdown on construction in Palestinian territory, excluding East Jerusalem.

The hilltop additions would run contrary to the current Israeli government's contention that it builds only in already built-up areas, although Palestinians and generally the rest of the international community make no distinction between types of settlements.