Guards shoot alleged Palestinian attacker in Jerusalem
Security personnal along the light rail route say they were set upon by the man and suspected he was carrying a knife
Stuart Winer is a breaking news editor at The Times of Israel.
A Palestinian man who allegedly tried to attack a security guard at a light rail train stop in Jerusalem on Monday was shot by security personnel.
The alleged attacker, whom police identified as a 35-year-old Palestinian from the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, was lightly wounded, Israel Police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.
A security guard told police that the man had “attacked him from behind” before running toward people waiting at the station, Samri said.
Several other security guards then opened fire at his legs before overpowering him.
Although the guards who shot the alleged attacker claimed they saw him reach for what they thought was a knife in one of his pockets, a knife was not found at the scene, Ynet reported.
He was evacuated to Hadassah Hospital in the Ein Kerem neighborhood.
There were no injuries to any of the passengers or the guards, and light rail service resumed shortly afterward.
The area, near Jerusalem’s northeastern French Hill neighborhood, has seen numerous deadly attacks on Israelis in recent months.
On April 16, a man was killed and a woman critically injured when a Palestinian resident of the West Bank village of Anata, just outside Jerusalem, rammed his car into a bus stop by French Hill.
Last October a Palestinian man slammed his car into a train platform in that part of the city, killing a baby girl and a young woman from Ecuador.
Two weeks later, a Palestinian man rammed his car into a crowded train platform in East Jerusalem and then attacked people with an iron bar, killing one person and injuring 13.
Monday’s knife incident also came after a spate of recent stabbing attacks by Palestinians against security personnel and civilians.
AFP and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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