Female stabber shot and killed during Old City attack attempt
Police open fire as East Jerusalem woman, 50, who had Israeli citizenship, tries unsuccessfully to knife them near Damascus Gate
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
Police officers shot and killed an Arab Israeli woman as she attempted to stab them in Jerusalem’s Old City on Tuesday, officials said.
No officers were injured in the attack. The assailant died of wounds suffered from gunfire, police said.
The 50-year-old woman, an Israeli citizen, approached the officers who were standing on Hagai Street, which runs from the Damascus Gate to the Western Wall. As she got closer, she took a knife out of her bag and attempted to stab them, police said.
“The officers who were in clear and present danger responded quickly and professionally. They shot and neutralized the threat,” police said in a statement.
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Police officers who arrived on the scene gave the woman first aid, but after a few minutes they pronounced her dead at the scene, police said.
The assailant’s name was Fadwa Ahmad Muhammad Abu Tier, according to the Palestinian Ma’an news outlet.
She was a resident of the Umm Tuba neighborhood of East Jerusalem and an Israeli citizen, a spokesperson said.
Shortly before that, in Qalandiya, IDF Military Police officers arrested a Palestinian woman who had a knife hidden in her bag, the army said.
The Military Police officers, who guard some checkpoints, saw the knife as the woman’s bag passed through their X-ray machine, the IDF said in a statement.
The Palestinian woman told interrogators that she had planned to carry out a stabbing attack with the knife, according to police.
The Damascus Gate in Jerusalem has become a flashpoint for attacks on Israeli Border Police officers.
Last month, three people were injured in a stabbing attack at the Damascus Gate — two border guards and a bystander who was hit by shrapnel.
Earlier in February, 19-year-old Border Police officer Hadar Cohen was killed in a terror attack at the Damascus Gate. A group of three Palestinians opened fire at Cohen and her fellow officers.
Cohen suffered a severe head wound and died several hours after the attack in Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus. Another officer was also seriously injured in the attack.
