Israeli man stabbed, lightly hurt in apparent argument in West Bank town

An Israeli man was stabbed and lightly wounded in the Palestinian West Bank town of Dayr Qadis on Monday in an apparent criminal incident, police and medics said.

According to an Israel Police spokesperson, the 25-year-old man entered the Palestinian town to shop at a local business. He then got into an argument and was stabbed by a local man armed with a screwdriver.

“At this stage, it appears that the background of the incident is criminal in nature” rather than a terrorist attack, the spokesperson said, adding that police were continuing to investigate.

The Magen David Adom ambulance service said the Israeli man was brought to a nearby checkpoint, close to the settlement of Nili, for treatment. He was then taken by MDA medics to Shaare Zedek hospital in Jerusalem.

MDA said the man was fully conscious and described his condition as good.

Later police said it had arrested a suspect allegedly behind the stabbing.

Despite being discouraged by authorities, Israelis frequently enter Palestinian towns for inexpensive shopping, vehicle repairs, or even dental care.

In October, an Israeli man was stabbed as he exited a store in a Palestinian village in an alleged terror attack. He died from his wounds several weeks later.

Tensions have soared in the West Bank recently, as the IDF has pressed on with an anti-terror offensive to deal with a series of Palestinian attacks that killed 31 people in 2022.

The IDF’s operation has netted more than 2,500 arrests in near-nightly raids. It also left 171 Palestinians dead in 2022, and another 13 since the beginning of this year, many of them while carrying out attacks or during clashes with security forces, though some were uninvolved civilians.