Israeli security forces killed two knife-wielding Palestinian attackers in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem on Saturday, police said.
In the West Bank city of Hebron, a Palestinian was shot dead by a paramilitary Israeli border police patrol after stabbing one of its men in the head and chest, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said. The injured policeman was taken to hospital.
Samri described the dead Palestinian as being around 20 years old. No further details on his identity were immediately available.
Earlier, 17-year-old Palestinian Ali Abu Ghannam attacked Israeli border police with a cleaver at a checkpoint in East Jerusalem and then fled, with troops giving chase and firing warning shots in the air, Samri said.
Reaching a second checkpoint, Abu Ghannam drew another knife and ran toward security guards there. They shot him dead when he ignored their warnings to stop, Samri said.
The official Palestinian news agency WAFA quoted President Mahmoud Abbas’s office saying Abu Ghannam’s killing emphasised “the ugliness of the occupation and its crimes against the defenceless Palestinian people under baseless and incorrect pretexts”.
