Palestinian girl, 16, pulls knife on police at Damascus Gate

A Palestinian teen girl attempted to stab Israeli troops at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate on Tuesday morning, police said.

The suspect, 16, was arrested after pulling a knife on border guards when they asked to search her, police said.

There were no Israeli injuries reported.

“The police reacted quickly, pushed her away and subdued her,” a police spokesperson said.

Police said the teenager, a student, had concealed the knife in her backpack. When police asked to search her bag, she pulled the knife “and tried to stab the policemen,” police said.

The teenager was taken in for questioning.

A knife used by an assailant near the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City on February 9, 2016, according to police. (Israel Police)

Also Tuesday, a Palestinian teenage girl armed with a knife was detained outside the West Bank settlement of Carmei Tzur.

The girl, said to be around 13, was arrested by the security guard at the entrance of the settlement in the Etzion bloc.

The army was investigating the incident, which comes several weeks after two fatal knife attacks inside West Bank settlements.

Over the weekend, a makeshift synagogue set up by residents of a nearby outpost north of Hebron was torched by suspected Palestinian assailants, with Jewish holy books burned.

The Damascus Gate area, the main entrance to the Muslim Quarter of the Old City in Jerusalem, has been the site of dozens of attacks in recent months.

On Monday, police officers stationed at the Damascus Gate area outside Jerusalem’s Old City arrested a Palestinian woman carrying a large knife.

Border Police officer Hadar Cohen, 19, was killed in a terror attack at Damascus Gate outside of Jerusalem’s Old City on February 3, 2016. (Israel Police)

The officers said that they stopped and searched the woman, said to be 42 years of age, after she was acting suspiciously. The search turned up the concealed blade.

Last week, policewoman Hadar Cohen, 19, was killed and a colleague was seriously injured after three Palestinians shot and stabbed them in the same area.

Since October, an ongoing wave of Palestinian terror attacks has killed over 25 Israelis, as well as an Eritrean, an American and a Palestinian bystander.

Some 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces, most while carrying out attacks but others during violent clashes and demonstrations.