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Jerusalem knife attack wounds two; IDF vehicles targeted on Gaza border
A Palestinian man wounded two Israelis in a vehicle and knife attack in Jerusalem yesterday. Meanwhile, Israel Air Force jets hit Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza Strip after IDF forces on the border twice came under fire.
Yesterday evening’s attack took place in the Romema neighbourhood of Jerusalem. The assailant rammed his car into pedestrians, injuring a 20-year-old man. The attacker then exited the car and stabbed a volunteer policeman. Meanwhile, an off-duty soldier exited a nearby bus and chased the assailant shooting him dead. The attacker was later named as 21-year-old Omar Eskafi from the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Beit Hanina.
It was the latest attack in a wave of violence, which has seen at least 21 Israelis killed since the start of October, mainly through knife and vehicle attacks. On Thursday, a policeman was moderately wounded in Jerusalem in a stabbing, while two were injured in a vehicle attack at the Hizme checkpoint near Jerusalem. The assailant was a member of the Palestinian Authority security forces.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Air Force struck a single Hamas position overnight in the northern Gaza Strip, described by the IDF simply as “a Hamas military post.” The strike was launched following two shooting attacks targeting IDF patrols near the Gaza border. On Friday, an army jeep came under fire, leaving bullet holes, while an almost identical attack was carried out yesterday. Nobody was injured in the incidents and no group has yet taken responsibility for the gunfire. Although the period since Operation Protective Edge in summer 2014 has seen relative quiet, there has also been periodic rocket fire aimed at Israel.
Also yesterday, Israel’s National Security Advisor Yossi Cohen told a Knesset committee that terror groups in Gaza attempted to attack Israel’s off-shore natural gas facilities during Operation Protective Edge. Although the attack was unsuccessful, Cohen warned that “the weapons that are in the hands of the terror organizations that surround us today are already far more sophisticated and precise.”