Border Police officer lightly hurt in stabbing attack at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate
Other officers shoot and kill assailant, identified as 33-year-old from Bedouin town near Beersheba, as he attempts to flee into Old City
A Border Police officer was lightly wounded Sunday evening in a stabbing attack at the Damascus Gate entrance to Jerusalem’s Old City.
The assailant attacked the officer with a sharp object, before attempting to flee into the Old City, police said.
Other Border Police officers then shot the assailant, killing him.
The assailant was identified by security sources as Ziad Abu Subeih, 33, from Ar’ara Banegev (Ar’arat an-Naqab), a Bedouin town near the southern city of Beersheba.
Magen David Adom paramedics said they arrived at the scene and provided immediate medical care to the stabbed officer, in his 20s, who was fully conscious.
He was then taken to a hospital, suffering a wound to his upper body.
Surveillance camera footage published by the police Sunday evening showed the stabbing.
Surveillance camera footage published by police shows the moment of the stabbing attack in Jerusalem's Old City this evening.
One Border Police officer was lightly hurt, and the assailant was shot. https://t.co/4SIV0oom17 pic.twitter.com/uYG8857lnW
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) September 15, 2024
“I saw a police officer arguing with an unidentified citizen — after a few seconds, [the officer] shouted, ‘Terrorist!'” said the officer who shot the assailant in a video distributed by police.
The stabbing came days after an Israeli soldier was run over and killed at a West Bank bus stop in an apparent attack, and one week after a Jordanian truck driver shot and killed three Israelis at the Allenby crossing, connecting the West Bank and Jordan.
Amid the spate of attacks, the Israeli military is conducting a major counter-terror operation in the northern West Bank.
The stabbing on Sunday also came amid heightened tensions over the nearby Temple Mount, a site in Jerusalem’s Old City that is considered the holiest place in Judaism and the third-holiest in Islam.
The Hamas terror group praised the stabbing on Sunday, calling it “a natural response to the ongoing crimes of occupation against our people in Gaza and the West Bank, and to the violations and escalating threats against the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque,” referring to the Muslim shrine situated inside the Temple Mount.
The statement, reported by Hebrew media, did not appear to include a claim of responsibility for the stabbing.
Israel has been at war with Hamas since October 7 of last year, when the terror group attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
Since the October 7 onslaught, Israeli forces have also arrested some 5,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,000 affiliated with Hamas.
