Knife attack thwarted near Kiryat Arba

The terrorist was reported to be a 14-year-old Palestinian male who approached soldiers and brandished a knife.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Updated: SEPTEMBER 24, 2016 23:09
Near the entrance to Kiryat Arba. (photo credit: EE911)
Near the entrance to Kiryat Arba.
(photo credit: EE911)
The IDF thwarted a stabbing attack at the entrance to Kiryat Arba on Friday afternoon.
Soldiers stationed there prevented an attack, by shooting and injuring a Palestinian teenager who approached the bus stop at the junction with a knife.
Just one week earlier three Israeli teenagers were lightly injured by two Palestinian teenagers, who attempted to run over pedestrians standing at a bus stop at the same junction.
The assailant was transported to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center for treatment.
Nine attacks have occurred in the West Bank in recent weeks, with an additional three in Jerusalem.
Most of the attacks have taken place in Hebron or the adjacent Kiryat Arba area.
Kiryat Arba council head Malachi Levinger said that it was thanks to the soldiers and a “miracle of God” that the attacks had not led the kind of fatalities they had seen in the past.
In June, a Palestinian teenager infiltrated Kiryat Arba, broke into a home and killed Hallel Yaffa Ariel, 13, as she slept in her bed.
Since then Levinger, along with Kiryat Arba residents, have called on Netanyahu to authorize a new neighborhood of some 300 homes next to where Ariel lived.
After Friday’s attack Levinger said, “We remain steadfast and undeterred by these attempt by terrorists to kill us.”
He called on the government to do more to halt such attacks.
“God has clearly worked miracles here and we also have to do more to maintain the normal routine of our lives here,” he said.
This includes, “continuing to build and expand, so that we can increase Jewish presence in this area,” he said.
Separately, just outside of Ramallah in the area of the town of Beit Likya, Palestinians threw stones at a border police vehicle, causing slight damage. Police chased after the stone throwers, arresting three Palestinians, who were from Beit Likya.