Assailant shot dead as he attempts to stab soldiers — army
Palestinian with knife tries to attack servicemen guarding bus stop outside Ofra settlement in West Bank; no Israelis injured
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian assailant as he attempted to stab them near the West Bank settlement of Ofra, the Israeli military said.
The Palestinian approached the servicemen with a knife near a bus stop outside the settlement northeast of Ramallah, where the soldiers had been standing guard, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
In response, the soldiers opened fire at the attacker, killing him, the army said.
“There were no injuries among our forces,” the IDF added.
The assailant was identified by the Palestinian health ministry as Maan Nasser al-Din Abu Qara, 23, from the nearby town of Mazra’a al-Qibliya.
A video from the scene was posted on social media shows the Abu Qara sprawled on the floor of the bus stop, with a knife next to his body.
On Monday, a member of the Palestinian security services opened fire at a group of IDF soldiers guarding at the nearby Focus checkpoint outside Ramallah, seriously injuring one and lightly wounding two.
The gunman, later identified as Muhammad Turkman, was shot and killed by Israeli forces.
A year of Palestinian terrorism and violence has seen 36 Israelis, two Americans and an Eritrean national killed in stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks. According to AFP figures, some 238 Palestinians, a Jordanian and a Sudanese migrant have also been killed, most of them in the course of carrying out attacks, Israel says, and many of the others in clashes with troops in the West Bank and at the Gaza border, as well as in Israeli airstrikes in the Strip.
Dov Lieber contributed to this report.
