An Israeli police officer was stabbed Tuesday by a 34-year-old Turkish national in Jerusalem’s Old City, Israeli police said. Israel’s Magen David Adom (MDA) emergency services said the injured police officer, aged 30, was taken to hospital in an “intermediate state of health”. The assailant was shot and killed, the MDA added.
“A terrorist armed with a knife arrived in the Old City of Jerusalem, on the street leading to Herod’s Gate, rushed at a police officer and stabbed him,” police detailed in a statement, specifying that another police officer present had “neutralized the assailant”.
Multiple attacks
Several stabbing attacks have taken place in Israel in recent weeks, after nearly seven months of fighting and almost daily bombings in the Gaza Strip. On April 26, an 18-year-old young woman was seriously injured in a suburb of Tel Aviv and her attacker was shot dead.
This new attack on Tuesday comes as long-term Qatari and Egyptian mediation seems to be bearing fruit and is raising hopes of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, associated with the release of a certain number of hostages held in Gaza.
The Islamist movement carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel on October 7, which resulted in the death of 1,170 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data.
Some 250 people were kidnapped on the day of the attack and 129 remain captive in Gaza, of whom 34 died according to Israeli officials. In response, Israel promised to annihilate Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007, and launched an offensive which has so far left 34,535 dead, mostly civilians, according to the Islamist movement’s Health Ministry.