Knife-brandishing Palestinian shot by IDF soldiers

Woman approaching soldiers brandishing a knife was shot and wounded before she could attack anyone.

By Paul Shindman, World Israel News

Israel Defense Forces soldiers guarding a busy traffic intersection between Jerusalem and Hebron on Sunday shot and wounded a Palestinian woman brandishing a knife, the IDF reported.

“A report was received of an attempted stabbing attack at the Gush Etzion junction … The female terrorist was neutralized at the location,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Office said in a statement.

The attack occurred at one of the three bus stops at the busy Gush Etzion junction on Highway 60 that runs south of Jerusalem towards Hebron.

Initial reports say the woman, 60, approached soldiers, who are permanently stationed at the bus stop, with the knife in her hand in an apparent stabbing attack. The soldiers are trained to intercept such attacks and in this case fired at the attacker’s lower body.

The woman was seriously injured and evacuated to a Jerusalem hospital.

It was the second such attack over the weekend.

A Palestinian man was shot and killed by police as he approached an officer with a broken glass bottle in his hand at a traffic light on Highway 60, five kilometers (3 miles) north of where Sunday’s attack took place.

Police said the man refused orders to stop while he approached police swinging the broken bottle at them. He was shot before he could stab the officer.

Israeli security officials have previously classified some of these attacks as “suicide by IDF,” a phrase that refers to Palestinian terrorists who carry out attacks with the knowledge that if they are killed in the confrontation, the Palestinian Authority will pay their families monthly cash stipends.

Termed “pay-for-slay,” the Palestinian Authority pays salaries to terrorists and the families of those killed while committing terror-related crimes. Over the years, the Gush Etzion junction has been the site of dozens of attacks, several of them lethal, resulting in the permanent placement of soldiers at each of the three bus stops located there.

IDF soldiers have shot and killed several attackers on foot in addition to a number of terrorists who attempted to kill people at the bus stops by ramming their vehicles into them.