Palestinian assailant shot dead after Jerusalem knife attack, says Israeli police

Israeli police shot dead a Palestinian teenager on Sunday morning after he stabbed and wounded an officer in Jerusalem’s Old City, Israeli police said.

The 19-year-old “approached police officers who were stationed at the Bab Huta Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, pulled out a knife and stabbed one of them,” the police statement said, adding that the assailant was shot and later pronounced dead on the scene by medics.

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A second police officer was injured in the incident, and both were “evacuated for medical treatment,” according to the statement. The attacker was identified only as a 19-year-old resident of east Jerusalem.

The Old City is in the Israeli-annexed eastern part of Jerusalem, which Palestinians claim as the capital of their future state.

Lone wolf knife attacks targeting Israeli security forces are common in the Old City and the Occupied West Bank.

The Bab Huta Gate leads to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, where violence exploded last May after Israeli police stormed the compound in response to worshippers throwing rocks and explosives.

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