Palestinian held after carrying knife at Hebron checkpoint

Incident in flashpoint West Bank city follows stabbing attack a day earlier against troops

By ToI Staff 25 March 2016, 9:04 am

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Illustrative: Israeli soldiers check the ID of a Palestinian woman near a Jewish enclave in Hebron on October 29, 2015. (AFP/Menahem Kahana)

A Palestinian woman was arrested in Hebron on Friday morning when she approached Israeli security forces at a checkpoint near the city’s Tel Rumeida neighborhood carrying a knife.

The knife was found when police searched her belongings.

The woman was taken for questioning by police.

An IDF soldier was wounded in a stabbing attack at the same site, known as Gilbert Junction, on Thursday.

That attack caused a furor in Israel after a soldier fired on one of the Palestinian assailants when the latter was apparently neutralized and disarmed, sparking criticism by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, and the launching of an investigation by the Military Police.

The Thursday incident in Hebron marked the first attack since Saturday, breaking a rare calm spell amid a wave of violence in the West Bank and Israel that has raged for nearly half a year.

In the nearly six months of Palestinian terrorism and violence since October, 29 Israelis and four foreign nationals have been killed. About 190 Palestinians have also been killed, some two-thirds of them while attacking Israelis, and the rest during clashes with troops, according to the Israeli army.