Posted on 11/22/15
| News Source: Times of Israel
A 21-year-old Israeli woman was killed in a stabbing attack at the Gush Etzion Junction, near the West Bank settlements of Efrat and Alon Shvut, on Sunday afternoon.
She was stabbed in the armpit, according to Channel 2. According to other reports she was stabbed in the head.
The woman was administered emergency treatment at the scene before ambulances evacuated her to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in nearby Jerusalem, where she was declared dead.
The stabber was shot and killed by security forces at the scene. The Shin Bet security service later named him as Wissam Tawabte, 34, from Beit Fajjar, a nearby Palestinian village. He did not have previous links to terror activity, the Shin Bet said.
Davidi Pearl, the head of the Etzion Regional Council, said the IDF must restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement and close off villages in order to prevent terror attacks in the future.
“We need to close down surrounding villages for a week or two,” Pearl told The Times of Israel, pointing to Palestinian cars driving around the Etzion Junction.
The Gush Etzion Junction has seen multiple attacks since the onset of the latest round of Palestinian violence some two months ago, including a shooting attack last Thursday that killed three people.
Earlier Sunday, a Palestinian driving a taxi attempted to run over and stab a group of Israelis near the settlement of Kfar Adumim. One man, 51, was very lightly injured with bruises to his arms, the Magen David Adom rescue service said.
After failing to hit anybody, the driver got out of the car and attacked them with a knife. The stabber was shot and killed by a civilian, police said.
According to police spokeswoman Luba Samri, the driver was a young man from the Palestinian village of al-Bireh near Ramallah.
Less than an hour earlier, a Palestinian woman with a knife was run over and shot while attempting to stab an Israeli civilian outside Nablus, Israeli officials said.
The attempted attack took place at a junction near the IDF’s Samaria Brigade headquarters in the northern West Bank. The attacker was first run over by former settler leader Gershon Mesika and then shot by security forces at the scene.
“Forces and a bystander responded to the the immediate threat, shooting the attacker,” an IDF statement read.
She reportedly died at the scene.