03-Dec-15: Near Damascus Gate in Jerusalem, another Arab-on-Israeli knifing attack tonight

Screen shot from Channel 2 news coverage of the stabbing scene, Street of the
Prophets (Heb: Rehov Hanevi'im) Jerusalem, near Damascus
Gate [Image Source]

Incredibly, there has been yet another stabbing attack close to the Old City of Jerusalem's Damascus Gate tonight. A uniformed police officer is injured. This happened just after dark, around 5:30 this evening (Thursday).

Times of Israel says:

The suspected assailant, a 21-year-old resident of the Palestinian West Bank city of Tulkarem, was shot dead after he approached a police car and stabbed the officer, security officials said. The stabbing occurred on Hanevi’im Street, a main road near Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate... The officer, a man in his thirties [is] a member of the Israel Police’s Special Patrol Unit...

According to Ynet, the policeman who was the target of the stabbing

fought the attacker, and his fellow officers, who saw the ongoing struggle, opened fire and shot the attacker dead. A Palestinian doctor from a nearby clinic who heard the commotion on the street went outside, noticed the wounded policeman and gave him initial medical care until Magen David Adom paramedics arrived at the scene. "We did our job. We gave him first aid and called an ambulance," said the doctor from Silwan. The 35-year-old wounded policeman suffered a stab wound to his hand and a gunshot wound to his leg, the latter likely caused by Israeli forces' fire when working to neutralize the terrorist. Magen David Adom paramedics evacuated the wounded policeman to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in the capital, where he was taken into surgery.

The attacker traveled some distance to reach the highlight of his short life.

Tulkarem is only 30 kilometers from the Tel Aviv metropolis, and twice that distance from Jerusalem. But distances can be deceiving in this part of the world. In Israel's life-and-death War of Independence, which, as a function of extreme Arab enthusiasm for a war of devastation and expulsion (of us Jews), got underway even before Israel managed to declare its independence on May 14, 1948, Tulkarem was under the control of the Arab forces of... Iraq. It may surprise younger readers to know that Iraq's army played a significant role -  an expeditionary force that eventually numbered 8,000 men along with 100 Iraqi Air Force planes - part of the massive Arab military invasion from the north, the east and the south, Once the 1947-49 war was over and Israel survived, Tulkarem - along with all the other Arab towns and cities of Judea and Samaria - fell under Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan occupation. Jordan's rule lasted for 19 years until its forces were routed by Israel in 1967's Six Day War, another life-and-death experience in the Israeli view.

We expect today's knife-man from Tulkarem will quickly be declared a martyr by those interested in creating more dead Palestinian Arabs. When we know more about his identity, we will update this post.