Israelis injured in new spate of stabbings

Police said four Israelis were hurt in Tel Aviv before the suspected attacker was shot dead.

Another three Israelis were wounded in East Jerusalem, northern Israel and the West Bank, Israeli officials said.

Israeli forces targeting the house of a suspected attacker in the West Bank then shot dead a Palestinian as clashes began, Palestinian medics said.

Nine Israeli police officers were also injured in the clashes, Israel's Channel 2 TV said.

Four Israelis were shot or stabbed to death and three attackers killed in a series of attacks in the past week before Thursday's spate of stabbings.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said the country was facing a "wave of terror".

At a news conference, he said: "The terrorist extremists won't achieve anything, we thwart them and we will win."

The Israeli authorities have increased security in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and put in place temporary restrictions on Palestinian access to Jerusalem's Old City, in an effort to stop more attacks.

In Tel Aviv on Thursday, a female soldier and three civilians were stabbed and lightly wounded with a screwdriver. The male assailant was then chased and shot dead by an air force officer, police said.

The incident occurred across the road from the Kirya military compound.

The mother of the soldier who was stabbed told the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth: "I saw the terrorist running up to my daughter and stabbing her. I started screaming and crying and I understand that this was a terrorist attack.

"She sat on her gun so he couldn't steal it, and the other soldier ran after the terrorist. I'm in shock. I just spoke to her and she is traumatised."

Shortly afterwards, a Palestinian stabbed and seriously wounded a man near the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, close to the West Bank city of Hebron, the Israeli military said.

The attacker fled the scene and Israeli forces were searching the area, it added.

 

(BBC)