Border police shoot Palestinian dead at Cave of Patriarchs

By YAAKOV LAPPIN
cave of patriarchs 224.88 (photo credit: Courtesy)
cave of patriarchs 224.88
(photo credit: Courtesy)
Border Police at the Cave of Patriarchs in Hebron shot a Palestinian man dead after he refused to undergo a security check and began running towards a number of officers on Wednesday evening. An initial inquiry by the Border Police into the incident found that the man had aroused the suspicions of officers after arriving on the scene. He refused to go through a security search and began running at a second group of Border Police officers. Officers called on the man to stop, and opened fire at him when he refused to heed their calls, the Border Police said. One officer was treated for minor injuries sustained to his leg by a ricocheting bullet. A bomb disposal team was called out to the scene to search the man's body for weapons, but none were found. Worshipers at the Cave of Patriarchs were evacuated from the area. In a statement released hours after the incident, the Border Police said that "four Molotov cocktails and five knives were seized over the past month in the area, which could have been used in terror attacks." "In most cases, the suspects [bearing the weapons] arrived from the ancient quarter in Hebron, the same direction the suspect came from," the statement continued.