Palestinian man stabs, injures border cop during search at Jerusalem checkpoint
Security forces shoot assailant dead; police say passenger lunged at female Border Police officer with sharpened screwdriver during routine search
A Palestinian man stabbed a female Border Police officer at the Tunnels Checkpoint near Jerusalem on Tuesday morning, police said, while security forces were questioning passengers to ensure they had valid entry permits.
Magen David Adom paramedics treated the 20-year-old officer at the scene and took her to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem in Jerusalem for further treatment of minor injuries.
Alon Pikarsky, the hospital’s director of general surgery, was quoted by the Ynet news site as saying that the officer had been wounded in the back with a screwdriver and would undergo imaging tests.
The assailant, a 27-year-old resident of the Bethlehem area in the West Bank who was on a bus trying to enter the Jerusalem area without a valid permit, according to Hebrew media, was shot dead at the scene.
According to police, the bus was driving from the West Bank to Jerusalem when it was stopped for a routine check. One of the passengers who was being questioned lunged at the Border Police officer with a sharpened screwdriver and stabbed her.
Other officers at the scene opened fire and “neutralized” the attacker, police said. They also found a knife and other suspicious items on the assailant’s person.
Ynet reported that the bus was operated by an East Jerusalem company and that police were questioning the driver.
Traffic at the busy checkpoint was closed briefly in both directions following the incident.
The attack came two days after a Palestinian man stabbed and killed two Israeli civilians and wounded two others in a terror attack in the central city of Holon.
Tensions in Israel and the West Bank have soared since October 7, when terrorists burst through the Gaza border into Israel in a Hamas-led attack, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages.
Since then, 25 Israelis, including security personnel, have been killed in Palestinian terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank — including in Sunday’s attack. Another five members of the security forces were killed in clashes with terror operatives in the West Bank.
In the same period, troops have arrested some 4,400 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,850 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 590 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops, or terrorists carrying out attacks.
