A 19-year-old Israel border police officer succumbed to wounds suffered during a coordinated shooting and stabbing attack near stabbing attack near the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday.
The victim, whose actions in shooting the terrorists prevented a major attack, was named as Hadar Cohen, aged 19, from Or Yehuda. Cohen was rushed to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital in critical condition after she was wounded in the attack.
Another policewoman was taken to the hospitable with wounds all over her body, including her head, and is in serious but stable condition.
The three attackers, identified by the Palestinian news agency Ma’an as Ahmed Abou Al-Roub, Mohammed Kameel and Mohammed Nassar, came from the northern West Bank, and arrived at the scene armed with reportedly locally fabricated “Carl Gustav” rifles, knives and two pipe bombs, police said.
Hamas has praised the attack as a “unique and heroic operation”, describing it as a “blow to the security system of the occupation”.
A team of Border Police officers spotted the three Palestinians and asked to see their identification papers. As one attacker withdrew his ID card, the others attacked the officers with guns and knives.
According to reports from Israel Radio, one of the attackers was a childhood friend of a Palestinian who was killed as he tried to stab an Israeli soldier in the West Bank three months ago. Over the weekend, the Palestinian assailant posted on Facebook about his friend and how much he misses him.
Police sealed off the area around Damascus Gate to examine a suspicious package after the attack and neutralised two pipe bombs, a police spokesman said.
In a separate terror attack this week, two 13-year-old Israeli Arab girls stabbed and wounded a security guard, aged 25, in the central Israeli city of Ramle. Police said the two suspects were arrested with knives in their possession. The stabbing took place at the central bus station located in the centre of the city.
31 Israelis have been killed in violent attacks since October, with at least 300 wounded – 28 of them seriously. Around 100 Palestinians have been killed in the act of terror, and at least 30 killed in violent clashes with Israeli police.
