An Israeli woman was stabbed to death by a Palestinian who was among three assailants to be shot dead following separate attacks on Sunday, Israeli security forces said, with the latest flare-up of violence coming ahead of a visit to the region by US Secretary of State John Kerry.
The Israeli woman was seriously wounded when a Palestinian attacked her with a knife in the West Bank on Sunday before being shot and killed by soldiers nearby, the military said.
A spokeswoman at Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem said the 21-year-old woman arrived in serious condition and later died of her wounds. The attack occurred at the Gush Etzion junction near Jerusalem, the scene of multiple Palestinian attacks over the past two months. In an earlier attack, the military said a woman pulled out a knife at the entrance to a military base and began approaching civilians. A local West Bank settler leader, Gershon Mesika, said he veered his vehicle off the road and struck the woman. A soldier then fired at her and killed her.
The army did not say how close the woman had been to carrying out an attack or release a video of the incident. Her father, Taha Qatanani, said his 16-year-old daughter went to school as usual in the morning and that he heard about her death two hours later. “She talked about stabbing to her brother the day before but no one took her seriously. If she tried to stab she did what she wanted,” he said.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, a Palestinian driving a taxi cab tried to run over Israelis east of Jerusalem, police said. After crashing his car, he emerged with a knife and tried to stab people, but was shot dead by a bystander before he could harm anyone. Israeli politicians have encouraged licensed gun owners to carr their weapons during the latest wave of unrest.