A Palestinian was shot dead on Wednesday (October 14) after he had attempted to stab paramilitary police at an entrance to Jerusalem’s walled Old City, police said.
In video filmed by Al Arabyia, the assailant clad in military-style camouflage clothing appears to be shot when lying on the ground before an officer calls on his comrades to cease firing.
Other television footage showed the assailant running with a knife in his hand before shots are heard.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian stabbed and wounded a 70-year-old woman outside Jerusalem’s central bus station, at the entrance to the city, before an officer shot him dead, a police spokeswoman said.
Israel set up roadblocks in Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem and deployed soldiers across the country on Wednesday in an effort to stop a wave of Palestinian knife attacks.
Violence has been partly triggered by Palestinians’ anger over what they see as increased Jewish encroachment on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is also revered by Jews as the site of two destroyed Jewish temples.
There is also deep-seated frustration with the failure of years of peace efforts to achieve Palestinian statehood and end Israeli settlement-building in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israel’s security cabinet had authorised the East Jerusalem crackdown in an overnight session after Palestinians armed with knives and a gun killed three Israelis and wounded several others on Tuesday.
Palestinian officials condemned the Israeli security measures – the most serious clampdown in the city since a Palestinian uprising a decade ago – as collective punishment.
Seven Israelis and 32 Palestinians, including assailants, children and protesters in violent anti-Israeli demonstrations, have been killed in two weeks of bloodshed. (Reuters)