A knife-wielding Palestinian police officer killed an Israeli soldier today as he sat in a jeep stopped at a traffic light in the West Bank, the IDF said. The attacker reached through the window and stabbed him in the chest. The wounded soldier, who was alone in the vehicle, tried to drive away, but he lost consciousness and the vehicle spun out of control, flipping over.The military identified the suspect as Mahmoud Hattib, a Palestinian police officer. He tried to flee after the attack, but a private Israeli security officer hit the suspect with his car, subduing him until police arrived. The dead soldier was identified as Staff Sgt. Ihab Khatib, from the Galilee region.
Palestinian officials would not confirm that Hattib was a member of the security forces. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters.
Locals said Hattib is a 27-year-old with ties to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah group.
After the attack, Israeli soldiers entered Hattib’s house in a village in the northern West Bank and ordered young men out, witnesses said.
In response to the fatal stabbing, settlers charged it was the increased Palestinian security presence that led to the attack.
The stabbing came during heightened tensions between settlers and the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu, who, under U.S. pressure, has declared a slowdown in construction in West Bank settlements in an attempt to restart peace talks.
Settler spokesman Yishai Hollender said today that Netanyahu’s policies were “again costing us in blood.”
{Boston Herald/Yair Alpert-Matzav.com Israel}
It’s time to stop playing games,and get serious.Getting Jews into the Army is one thing but getting Druze or Bedouins to join willbecome much harder if we let the PA ‘dance on our heads’
In the zchus of Staff Sgt. Ihab Khatib’s sacrifice for the people of Israel, may his family have a nechama