Israeli forces shoot and kill Palestinian attacker - police

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man who tried to stab a soldier in the occupied West Bank on Monday, the police and army said, as a month-long wave of violence showed no signs of abating.

Troops approached two Palestinians at a petrol station near a checkpoint between Israel and the West Bank, then one of the men tried to stab one of the soldiers, the military said.

Soldiers shot the man, the military said. Police said he died of his wounds and the other Palestinian was arrested.

At least 67 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli gunfire since Oct. 1. Forty of those were assailants armed mainly with knives, while others were shot during anti-Israel protests, Israeli authorities have said. Many were teenagers.

Eleven Israelis have been killed in stabbings and shootings by Palestinians.

The worst outbreak of violence since the 2014 Gaza war arose in part from religious and political tensions over Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque compound, a site sacred to both Muslims and Jews.

A growing number of visits by religious Jews to al-Aqsa plaza - Islam's holiest site outside Saudi Arabia and revered in Judaism as the location of two destroyed biblical temples - have stirred Palestinian allegations that Israel is violating a long-running agreement banning non-Muslim prayer there.

Israel has accused Palestinian officials of inciting the violence by spreading the allegations, which it says are false.

 

 

 REUTERS