Tourist lightly hurt in Jerusalem rock-throwing attack

A tourist was taken to hospital with light injuries on Monday after being hurt in a rock-throwing attack near the Old City of Jerusalem’s Lions’ Gate, paramedics from the Magen David Adom rescue service said.

The woman, 60, suffered injuries to her upper body and was bleeding from a cut. The authorities did not specify the nationality of the victim, who was taken to Hadassah Hospital, Ein Kerem for treatment.

The Lions’ Gate, on the eastern side of the Old City, was the site of several stabbing attacks last year.

On October 12, Mustafa Khatieb, 17, from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal Mukaber, tried to knife a Border Police officer near the Lions’ Gate before he was shot and killed.

In December a man was injured after being hit by a rock thrown at a group of tourists near the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem. The victim, a 56-year-old tourist, was treated for light injuries after being hit in the head by a rock at the Christian holy site, just north of the walls of the Old City. Police arrested a 16-year-old boy.

Tensions in the capital have spiraled in recent months amid a spate of Palestinian attacks on Jewish Israelis. Twenty-nine Israelis and three foreign nationals have been killed in the wave of Palestinian terrorism and violence since October. Some 180 Palestinians have also been killed — about two-thirds of them while attacking Israelis, and the rest during clashes with troops — according to the Israeli army.