A Jerusalem knife attack on Wednesday ended with an Israeli stabbed to death, and another killed, seemingly by a stray police bullet, as officers shot dead the Palestinian assailants.
“Three (Israeli) casualties were taken from the scene, two with multiple stab wounds and another with a gunshot wound, apparently from the police fire to neutralise the terrorists,” a police statement said.
“The critically injured gunshot victim has died of his injury,” Jerusalem’s Shaarei Tzedek hospital said in a statement later.
It said he was a 46-year-old married father of two from Jerusalem.
The city’s Haddasah hospital said a short time later that one of the stabbing victims had died of multiple knife wounds.
The second was said to be in intensive care but out of danger after surgery at Shaarei Tzedek.
Police said the two attackers, aged 20 and 21, were from Qalandiya refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The attack occurred at the Old City’s Jaffa Gate, a popular entrance for tourists at a time of increased visits to the Holy Land for the Christmas season.
A wave of violence since the start of October has claimed the lives of 125 on the Palestinian side, 19 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was at a reception in west Jerusalem overlooking the Old City when news of the deaths broke.
“We are under continuous terrorist attack,” his office quoted him as saying. “We shall fight it and we shall win.”
Shortly after the stabbings, the body of one of the attackers lay on the walkway near where buses drop off tourists, with security forces cordoning off the area.
It was however quickly removed and the pavement hosed down, with little trace of what happened as tour groups arrived later and walked past the site.
Jaffa Gate is used by tourists who make their way to sites such as Jesus’s Stations of the Cross, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — built on the site where, according to tradition, Jesus was crucified — and the Western Wall.
The Old City is located in east Jerusalem, occupied by Israel in 1967 and later annexed.
– ‘Blood brings blood’ –
A 39-year-old owner of a restaurant near Jaffa Gate who asked not to be identified said “we heard six shots”.
“We saw a lot of police there. It was really like a movie,” he said. “We feel sad because blood brings more blood.”
Many of the Palestinians killed have been attackers, while others have been shot dead by Israeli security forces during clashes.
The stabbers have often been young Palestinians, including teenagers, who appear to be acting on their own.
A number of them have attempted attacks with kitchen knives in what some analysts have described as de facto suicide missions.
Palestinians have grown frustrated with Israel’s occupation, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership, while international efforts to end the violence have so far failed.
Separately, the Shin Bet internal security agency said Wednesday that it had arrested a group of 25 Palestinians in recent weeks for allegedly planning bombing and suicide attacks against Israelis.
Bombings have so far not played a role in the current wave of violence.
The agency said most of the suspects were students at Abu Dis university in the West Bank who were recruited by Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip to “form a military infrastructure to carry out bombing attacks”.
The Shin Bet said it had also found an apartment in Abu Dis rented by the group’s leader and equipped with materials that could be used to make bombs.
One of the suspects was an east Jerusalem resident, and another was a Bedouin from southern Israel, it said.