Palestinian attempts to stab cops at checkpoint north of Jerusalem, is shot
Police say assailant subdued with shot to the legs; no information immediately released on attacker’s identity and motive
A Palestinian assailant attempted to stab security officers at the Qalandiya checkpoint north of Jerusalem, police said Tuesday.
Border Police officers at the scene opened fire on the man after he attempted to stab them, police said.
The assailant was neutralized and no officers were hurt in the incident, they said.
Reports said the stabber was shot in the leg or stomach. His condition was not immediately known. He was taken to hospital to receive treatment.
The incident came hours after an Israeli soldier was killed in the predawn hours during an arrest operation near Jenin. Sgt. First Class Amit Ben-Ygal, 21, was hit in the head with a rock thrown from a building in Yabed as forces were wrapping up the operation.
Recent weeks have seen several Palestinian attacks in the West Bank and in Israel.
On Monday a 20-year-old Palestinian man was indicted on terror charges for allegedly stabbing an Israeli woman in the central city of Kfar Saba on Memorial Day last month.
On April 30 a Palestinian crashed his car into a West Bank checkpoint near Jenin in a suspected attack attempt. The driver approached the Reihan checkpoint and security officials signaled he should slow for a check. Instead the man accelerated toward the checkpoint and drove his vehicle into a concrete block, officials said. There were no injuries. The man, from the village of Barta’a, was arrested by security officials on the scene and told investigators he wanted to die.
A week earlier a Border Police officer was moderately injured in a combined car-ramming and stabbing attack at a West Bank checkpoint east of Jerusalem.
According to police, the Palestinian assailant rammed his van into the border guard at the “Kiyosk” checkpoint near the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, then got out of the vehicle and attacked the officer with a pair of scissors before other troops at the scene shot him dead.
The border guard sustained moderate wounds in the attack.