A Palestinian shot by police during a stabbing attack against Israeli officers in the West Bank city of Hebron on Monday has died of his wounds, a hospital statement said.
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Monday’s incident follows a weekend surge in Palestinian attacks that shattered weeks of relative calm. Israeli police said Amro rushed out of Jerusalem’s Old City armed with knives and tried to stab officers before being shot dead.
When the border police began approaching, one of the suspects pulled a knife and attempted to stab the officers, who in response shot at him while calling on the second suspect to move aside so he would not be hit. The man had both a Jordanian and a Palestinian ID on him, police said.
The perpetrator was a 20-year-old from east Jerusalem and believed to be in critical condition, a police spokeswoman said.
Palestinian street attacks that began almost a year ago had largely waned in recent months, but a series of assaults since Friday have raised alarm in Israel of a new wave of bloodshed in the run-up to the Jewish New Year holiday next month.
The officers were securing a holy site known to Jews as the Tomb of the Patriarchs and to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque, Samri said.
Israeli security forces had been on increased alert in advance of the Jewish high holidays, which include Yom Kippur.
It said a “terrorist carried out a stabbing attack in Efrat and wounded an officer”.
The spike in violence spurred the Israeli military to send troop reinforcements to the West Bank.
Palestinians, many of them acting alone and with rudimentary weapons, have killed at least 33 Israelis and two visiting Americans in the attacks.
However, he noted, though the five attacks over the weekend were “of course a change from recent weeks, we cannot now point to any major change on the ground that indicates it will increase”. Four Palestinians, one of whom held Jordanian citizenship, were shot dead in recent days over alleged assaults on Israelis, according to Israeli authorities.
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Israel says anti-Israeli incitement by Palestinian officials and on social media networks have stoked attacks.
