Border Police say they foiled stabbing near Jerusalem

Israel’s Border Police said its forces thwarted a stabbing attack in Jerusalem on Thursday, disarming and arresting a Palestinian man carrying a knife at a crossing near the capital.

The troops’s suspicions were sparked when a young Palestinian man approaching the crossing refused orders to stop, according to a statement released by the Border Police.

The man pulled out a knife and halted his advance only once the forces cocked their weapons. He was searched, arrested and transferred for interrogation, police said, adding that initial questioning revealed that he had planned a stabbing attack in Jerusalem.

“There is no doubt that [the forces’] quick response prevented a worse situation from unfolding,” said the commander of the Border Police’s northern Jerusalem battalion, Chief Superintendent Golan Sharoni.

Israel has seen a surge in attacks on security forces and civilians in recent weeks, a number of them fatal.

Last week, 25-year-old Malachy Moshe Rosenfeld from the West Bank settlement of Kohav Hashahar was killed when the car he was traveling in with friends was shot at by a Palestinian assailant near Shvut Rahel, north of Ramallah.

Earlier that same week, a Palestinian man stabbed and seriously injured a Border Police officer outside Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate. The assailant was shot and captured.

Late last month, a Palestinian assailant was shot and killed by IDF soldiers after he opened fire on Israeli troops at a checkpoint in the West Bank. No soldiers were injured in the attack.

On June 19, a 25-year-old Israeli man, Danny Gonen, died after being shot near the settlement of Dolev, northwest of Jerusalem.