JERUSALEM (AP) – Three Palestinians were killed while carrying out separate stabbing attacks on Sunday that severely wounded an Israeli woman, Israeli security forces said, with the latest flare-up of violence coming ahead of a visit to the region by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.
The Israeli woman was seriously wounded when a Palestinian attacked her with a knife in the West Bank Sunday afternoon before being shot and killed by soldiers nearby, the military said. Rescue services said the 20-year old Israeli woman is in serious condition.
The attack occurred at the Gush Etzion junction near Jerusalem, the scene of multiple Palestinian attacks over the past two months.
In an earlier attack, the military said a woman pulled out a knife at the entrance to a military base and began approaching civilians. A local West Bank settler leader, Gershon Mesika, said he veered his vehicle off the road and struck the woman. A soldier on the scene then fired at her and killed her. The army did not say how close the woman had been to carrying out an attack or release a video of the incident.
Her father, Taha Qatanani, said his 16-year-old daughter went to school as usual in the morning and that he heard about her death two hours later. “She talked about stabbing to her brother the day before but no one took her seriously. If she tried to stab she did what she wanted,” he said.