Israeli forces killed a Palestinian gunman in the occupied West Bank on Thursday and a Palestinian woman who tried to stab officers in Jerusalem's Old City, Israeli police said.
Police said in a statement Israeli soldiers and paramilitary police on an operation near the West Bank city of Jenin shot and killed a Palestinian who fired at them.
A Palestinian medical source confirmed the death of a 22-year-old man. The Islamic Jihad militant group issued a statement saying he was one of its members and that he was killed in a shootout with Israeli forces carrying out a raid.
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In Jerusalem's Old City, Israeli police officers shot dead a Palestinian woman who tried to stab them, police said, identifying her as a resident of the West Bank.
The woman approached officers outside an entrance to the city’s flashpoint holy site known to Muslims as the Al-Aqsa Compound and to Jews as the Temple Mount, police said in a statement, according to the Associated Press.
“After she approached them, she drew a knife and attempted to stab the officers at the scene, who responded by shooting at her,” the statement added. “Medical personnel who arrived at the scene pronounced her dead.”
The violence came amid tensions heightened by the deaths on Sunday of five Palestinians, at least four of them claimed as members by the Hamas militant group, in gun battles with Israeli forces carrying out arrest raids in the West Bank.
Palestinians have carried out scores of car-ramming, shooting and stabbing attacks targeting Israeli soldiers, police officers and civilians in recent years in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups say security personnel often use excessive force.
Israel captured the West Bank and east Jerusalem, including its Old City, in the 1967 Middle East war. Palestinians seek to establish a state in the West Bank and Gaza, with east Jerusalem as its capital.