Border Policeman Killed by ‘Friendly Fire’ Following Jerusalem Stabbing Attack
An Israeli border police officer, 22-year-old Sgt. Asil Su’ad, who was shot by friendly fire after being stabbed at the checkpoint to the Shuafat refugee camp in northern Jerusalem on Monday afternoon, has succumbed to his wounds.
The attack in Shuafat came just hours after another man in his 20s was lightly injured in a separate stabbing attack near the Chain Gate of the Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif, also in Jerusalem.
The attacker in Shuafat was identified as Mohammed Bassel Fathi Zalbani, 13, who resides in the refugee camp. After Zalbani stabbed Su’ad, who was performing a security check on a bus, the officer was hit by gunfire that was targeted at the attacker.
The attack near the Chain Gate in the Old City was allegedly perpetrated by a 14-year-old resident of Shuafat. Police arrested the suspect after closing the doors to the Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque and entering the compound. The doors were reopened after the arrest.
The attacks come just days after a terrorist ramming attack in the Ramot neighborhood of Jerusalem claimed the lives of two children and a young man. The Jerusalem Municipality also demolished two homes belonging to the Bashir family in the Jabel Mukaber neighborhood on Monday.
In response to rocket fire targeting southern Israel on Saturday, the Israeli Air Force on Monday morning conducted airstrikes in the Gaza Strip, targeting an underground rocket manufacturing facility belonging to Hamas. During the airstrikes, Palestinian armed groups in Gaza fired four surface-to-air missiles, with one of them falling in an open area and setting off rocket sirens in Sderot and Ruchama. The Israeli Defense Forces responded with tank fire on Hamas positions near the Gaza border.
