Palestinian kills Israeli in West Bank stabbing attack



TAPUAH, Palestinian Territories- A knife-wielding Palestinian stabbed to death an Israeli settler in the northern West Bank on Tuesday, in the first fatal anti-Israeli attack in the territory in 18 months, officials said.
The attack, near Tapuah junction south of Nablus, prompted clashes between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in a nearby village, security sources said.



"The Palestinian suspect stabbed an Israeli sitting at a bus stop. He died," police spokeswoman Luba Samri told AFP.
"He grabbed the (victim's) weapon and fired towards the border police force that was in the area. They fired back and neutralised him," she added, saying he had been arrested and taken to an Israeli hospital for treatment.
Police named the victim as Eviatar Borovsky, saying he was a father of five in his 30s from the nearby hardline settlement of Yitzhar.
The Israeli army confirmed details of the incident and said the attacker had been evacuated in "moderate to severe condition".
Palestinian security sources identified him as 23-year-old Salam Mohammed al-Zaghal from the northern town of Tulkarem who had been released last month after completing a three-year term in an Israeli jail.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his "pain and the sorrow of the nation" to Borovsky's family, adding that "we will continue to act... to protect our citizens".
Following the incident, Jewish settlers began attacking Palestinian cars in the area, pelting them with stones, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.
They also heavily damaged a passing school bus carrying children, totally destroying its windscreen, a separate AFP photographer said.
The driver of the bus was taken to hospital with injuries, a witness said.
In the nearby village of Urif, more than 100 settlers attempted to attack a mosque by breaking its windows with stones, leading to clashes with locals that left several people injured on both sides, according to security sources and witnesses.
Settlers also set fire to fields surrounding the village of Hawara, which Palestinian firefighters were trying to put out, the photographer said.
Police and soldiers arrested 15 settlers from Yizhar who were suspected of involvement in the anti-Palestinian violence and of assaulting security forces.
Speaking to reporters, Captain Barak Raz, the military spokesman for the West Bank, said the stabbing was the first such deadly incident in 18 months.
"After about a year and a half of quiet, we have an incident in which a Palestinian male attacks an Israeli, stabs him and takes his gun," he said, indicating there had been several attacks at the same junction, including a stabbing in January.
"It reinforces our assessment that the threat posed through terrorism is still very present and clear," he said.
A spokesman for the settlers, David Haivri, expressed their anger and said he wanted sanctions on the Palestinian Authority, which he claimed "supports and encourages terrorism."
The last time Israelis were killed in the West Bank was in September 2011 when Palestinians threw stones at a car, causing its Jewish settler driver to lose control and crash, killing him and his 18-month-old son.
Six months before that, a couple and their three young children were stabbed to death in a brutal attack, which took place in Itamar settlement, also close to the Tapuah junction.
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Wednesday, May 1st 2013
AFP
           


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