Palestinian nabbed outside settlement with meat cleaver, Quran

A Palestinian man was arrested outside a settlement in the central West Bank on Thursday, after a search of his backpack yielded a meat cleaver, a knife, and a copy of the Quran, police said.

The suspect was spotted near the entrance to the Kochav Yaakov settlement, near Ramallah, by a firefighter who called police to inform them of the “suspicious man.”

A group of officers from the Israel Police’s Special Patrol Unit were called to the scene and, together with the firefighter, detained the man. A group of IDF soldiers later arrived at the scene as well.

Upon searching the man’s backpack, they found the weapons and the Quran.

According to police, the suspect told the officers that the bag was not his, but that the knives were going to be used to carry out a terror attack.

The man has been placed under arrest and is being interrogated, police said.