JERUSALEM (Reuters) -A Palestinian stabbed and wounded two Israelis, one of them a soldier, on Monday near a flashpoint area of East Jerusalem that has been the focus of Palestinian protests, medics said, and police said officers shot the assailant.
The Palestinian health ministry said it was “looking into the condition of a citizen who was shot in Jerusalem”. Video on social media appeared to show the knifeman lying motionless and covered with a sheet on the ground at a street intersection.
Israel’s Magen David Adom ambulance service said two men in their 20s had been injured in the attack, one seriously and one lightly.
The incident occurred near the neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where the potential evictions of Palestinian families drew mass protests and helped spark 11 days of fighting between Israel and Gaza militants. [nL8N2MZ52V]
One of the wounded men is an Israeli soldier, the Israeli military said. “The soldier received medical treatment at the scene and was evacuated to a hospital for further medical treatment,” it said in a statement.
Video posted on social media showed the soldier, wearing an Israeli air force uniform, with a knife lodged in his back as he kneeled on the ground and received treatment from medics.
Tensions have been high in Sheikh Jarrah and at the Old City’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, where Israeli police raids in recent weeks helped draw rocket fire by Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas.
An Egyptian-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hamas held into a fourth day on Monday. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to visit the region this week for talks with Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian and Jordanian leaders.
(Reporting by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Giles Elgood and Gareth Jones)
