Police officer lightly hurt in shooting attack in Jerusalem’s Old City
Assailant shot dead by other officers at the scene; incident comes amid growing tensions in Jerusalem and West Bank
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
A Border Police officer was lightly injured in a shooting attack in the Old City of Jerusalem on Wednesday, police said, amid growing tension in the capital and the West Bank.
The assailant was shot dead by other officers at the scene, police said.
The incident occurred outside the Temple Mount, between the King Faisal Gate, also known as the Gate of Darkness, and the Lions Gate, Israeli officials said.
“An assailant approached officers who were stationed near the Lions Gate, and opened fire at them,” police said.
“Other officers responded quickly, firing at the assailant and neutralizing him,” police said.
Police later confirmed that the attacker was an Israeli citizen from northern Israel.
The shooting attack came hours after a car-ramming in the capital earlier in the day in which 12 soldiers were injured, one of them seriously, and following significant clashes in Jenin during the demolition of a terrorist’s home in the West Bank city.
The Magen David Adom ambulance service said the officer, 38, sustained light injuries to his arm.
“We got him in an intensive care ambulance, gave him medical treatment including bandaging the wound and giving him painkillers, and took him for further care in the hospital,” an MDA medic said.
Police said the investigation into the shooting was ongoing.
Tensions in the West Bank and Jerusalem have been heightened over the past week, following the release of US President Donald Trump’s plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict last Tuesday. The Palestinian Authority immediately rejected the proposal, which was widely seen as being overwhelmingly favored toward Israel.
In the week and a half since the plan’s release, the military has noted a significant increase in violence in the West Bank, with regular riots, rock-throwing and violent opposition to Israeli arrest raids.
On Wednesday, a Palestinian teenager was shot dead by Israeli troops as he threw a Molotov cocktail at them in Hebron, the military said.
Another Palestinian teenager, a PA police cadet, was also shot dead during the clashes in Jenin in the predawn hours of Thursday morning under what the IDF said were unclear circumstances. The IDF said it was investigating the matter.
