Security forces arrest Gazan who crossed into Israel with knife

A Palestinian man from the southern Gaza Strip who managed to cross into Israel was arrested by IDF soldiers overnight Tuesday-Wednesday. A knife was found in his possession, the military said.

He was transferred for interrogation, Army Radio reported.

It was not immediately clear what his intentions were.

Israel has been battling a wave of Palestinian terror attacks that has included stabbings, shootings, car-rammings and a suicide bombing over the past eight months. The attacks seem to have abated in recent weeks, a far cry from the situation just a few months ago where Palestinian assailants were carrying out attacks against Israeli civilians and security personnel up to several times a day.

The terror wave has claimed the lives of 29 Israelis and four foreign nationals since last October. Some 200 Palestinians have also been killed over the same period, the majority of them while carrying out attacks against Israeli civilians or soldiers, and the others during clashes with troops, according to the Israeli army.

On Monday, a soldier was lightly wounded during a stabbing attack in the center of Tel Aviv.

Security forces arrested a Palestinian teenager near the scene of the attack, after he fled and tried to hide in a residential building. Police said the stabber likely had nationalistic motives and they were therefore treating the incident as terrorism.

The attacker was identified as a 17-year-old resident of the West Bank.

Eyewitnesses said the teen shouted “Allahu akbar” — the Arabic for “God is great” — during the incident. The attack was apparently carried out with a screwdriver, Channel 2 news reported.

Medical personnel at the scene administered first aid to the 19-year-old soldier for injuries to his upper body before taking him to Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital.