An Israeli soldier was seriously injured Monday in a stabbing attack outside a police station in annexed East Jerusalem by an assailant who was killed, Israeli police said. “A terrorist armed with a knife arrived at the Shalem police station and stabbed a female soldier (…) Border police forces neutralized the terrorist by shooting,” the police added in a statement.
The Israeli Magen David Adom emergency services announced that they had taken care of the injured 20-year-old woman, as well as another slightly injured person, also 20 years old. According to Israeli police, the attacker is a young Palestinian from al-Issaouiya, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem occupied by Israel since 1967. “Another suspect” in connection with the attack was arrested near the scene, a we added from the same source.
Recurring tensions
The area of the attack, which took place near the Damascus Gate, one of the entrances to the Old City, remains cordoned off and the chief of the Israeli police, Yaakov Shabtai, went to the site. On October 12, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem opened fire in the same location, wounding two soldiers, before being killed. And on October 30, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem was killed after stabbing and wounding an Israeli police officer near a gas station not far away.
Since the start of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented deadly attack by the Islamist movement on Israeli soil, tensions have been numerous in East Jerusalem, which includes Old Town. town deserted by tourists.
“Our police officers have been on the front line for a month,” said the Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, who advocated “zero tolerance” and called for the attacker’s house to be destroyed. In the occupied West Bank, at least 150 Palestinians have been killed by fire from Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.