Police nab Palestinian with knife at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate

Suspect, 25, admits he planned to stab Israelis, authorities say

By Judah Ari Gross and ToI Staff 8 April 2016, 3:11 pm

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Illustrative: A policeman speak to soldiers at Damascus Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem on March 23, 2016. (Corinna Kern/Flash90)

The Israel Police said Friday they arrested a 25-year-old Palestinian man outside Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate who was carrying a large knife in his bag.

The Palestinian, a resident of the West Bank in Israel illegally, was brought in for questioning, where he told police he bought the knife and came to the area to carry out a stabbing attack on Israelis.

The suspect was not immediately named.

Damascus Gate has been the site of many attacks in recent months, including a drive-by shooting in early March. In February, three people were injured in a stabbing attack there — two border guards and a bystander who was hit by shrapnel. Earlier that month, 19-year-old Border Police cadet Hadar Cohen was killed in a shooting attack at the Damascus Gate.

A knife found on a Palestinian near Jerusalems Damascus Gate on April 8, 2016 (Courtesy/Israel Police)

On Monday, the Israel Police said that officers arrested a Palestinian in the West Bank who was planning to carry out a car-ramming attack against soldiers. The 23-year-old Ramallah man was detained Sunday morning at a West Bank checkpoint, where police from the Binyamin district were conducting a “stop and search” operation.

A quick inspection revealed the man did not have a driver license and was driving a car stolen from central Israel a month earlier. The suspect was taken for questioning at Binyamin station, where he confessed that he was planning to carry out a car-ramming attack against IDF soldiers “because of the occupation of Palestinian lands.” He also told investigators that he hoped to become a “martyr” by dying in the attack.

On Sunday, a 30-year-old Israeli woman in the central Israeli city of Rosh Ha’ayin was lightly injured in a stabbing attack. The attacker, a young Arab Israeli woman from the nearby village of Kfar Kassem, was subdued by a security guard and taken into custody without shots being fired.

That stabbing ended a nine-day stretch without attacks in Israel and the West Bank.

In the past six months since the ongoing wave of terror began in October 2015, 29 Israelis and four foreign nationals have been killed. Nearly 200 Palestinians have also been killed, some two-thirds of them while attacking Israelis, and the rest during clashes with troops, according to the Israeli army.