A Palestinian teenager was detained by security forces on Wednesday when he approached a Border Police post in Hebron with a knife, police said.
There were no injuries to security forces and no reports of injury to the suspect, a 16-year-old resident of the flashpoint West Bank city, Israel Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said.
Officers’ suspicions were aroused by the suspect’s behavior as he drew near them at an entrance to the Tomb of the Patriarchs. They then noticed he was carrying a weapon and arrested him, Samri said.
The Tomb of the Patriarchs shrine, revered as the final resting place of several biblical patriarchs and matriarchs, is among the holiest sites to Judaism and is also celebrated by Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque.
A spate of attacks by Palestinians over the past two months has seen almost daily stabbing and shootings against Israeli civilians and security forces, both in the West Bank and within Israeli territory. Much of the unrest, including frequent rioting, has focused in and around Hebron.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the
terms
On Friday, gunmen ambushed an Israeli vehicle, killing Rabbi Yaakov Litman and his 18-year-old son Netanel, near the southern West Bank settlement of Otniel, near Hebron.
On Tuesday night, near the West Bank village of Turmus Aya, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on IDF troops. The soldiers returned fire, and one of the gunmen was killed; there were no casualties among the troops.
We can't do this work alone.
The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident – ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded – I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.
There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.
As a Times of Israel reporter, I’m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit’s. But my colleagues and I can't do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.
— Stav Levaton, military reporter
Yes, I'll join
Yes, I'll join
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You're a dedicated reader
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Join Our Community
Join Our Community
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
