Two Israeli soldiers were wounded Tuesday in a knife attack in the center of the country and the Palestinian assailant was arrested, according to the police and the rescue services.
A suspect was arrested after stabbing two soldiers near the Tzrifin military base near Beer Yaakov on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, Israel Police said in a statement.
According to Magen David Adom, the Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross, the two injured are in their twenties. Shamir Medical Center, where they were transferred, near the military base, said one of the soldiers had left the establishment, while the other remained hospitalized.
The perpetrator of the attack is a resident of the Hebron region, in the southern West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, according to the police who did not give further details.
“During the attack, the terrorist tried to seize the weapon” from one of the two soldiers before being immobilized by civilians, the Israeli army said in a press release.
In 2003, during the Second Intifada (Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation), nine soldiers were killed in a suicide attack near the Tzrifin base.
The new attack comes after several deadly incidents since Friday, following a lull in Israeli-Palestinian violence since the start of Ramadan 10 days ago.
On Monday, two Palestinian fighters were killed in a new Israeli military incursion into Nablus, in the northern occupied West Bank.
On Saturday, three Israelis were injured in a car-ramming attack in the West Bank. The alleged perpetrator was killed by soldiers.
And overnight from Friday to Saturday, Israeli police shot and killed a young Bedouin man from southern Israel who they said grabbed a policeman’s gun and fired it in Jerusalem’s Old City, sector occupied and annexed by Israel. His family disputes this version of the facts.
Since early January, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of at least 91 Palestinians, 15 Israelis and one Ukrainian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
These figures include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, including minors, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, including minors, and two members of the Arab minority.
04/04/2023 18:41:57 – Jerusalem (AFP) – © 2023 AFP