Israeli police shoot dead Palestinian in Ashkelon after alleged stabbing
Israeli police shot dead a Palestinian man on Tuesday morning after he allegedly attempted to stab an officer in the port city of Ashkelon, Israeli police said.
The man was identified by police as a 40-year-old from the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, the newspaper Haaretz reported.
A 37-year-old officer was lightly wounded and taken to hospital.
Israeli police said the officer had been investigating a man who aroused his suspicion when "the attacker pulled out a knife and attacked the officer".
Police said the officer "responded quickly, fired, and neutralised the suspect, whose death was declared on site".
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The killing is just the latest in a wave of violence across Israel and Palestine that has taken place in recent weeks.
A fourth day of Israeli military operations took place in the West Bank on Tuesday in the city of Jenin, with gun battles breaking out between security forces and Palestinians.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa said Israeli soldiers "fired live bullets, stun grenades and tear gas" at Palestinians attempting to push back against the incursion.
Four people were arrested from Jenin and the nearby village of al-Yamoun, the agency added.
Israel began launching operations against Jenin last week after an assailant from the district shot and killed three people in a Tel Aviv bar on Thursday.
Visiting the bar after it reopened, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said he would "not let our enemy stop our lives".
"We will continue to live our lives and at the same time we will fight where they are located, in their bases, at their source - and, please God, we will win," he said.
Wave of killings
On Sunday and Monday, four Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces in separate incidents across the occupied West Bank within 24 hours
Mohammad Zakarna, 17, was pronounced dead on Monday morning by the Palestinian health ministry after succumbing to wounds he sustained on Sunday during an Israeli army raid in Jenin.
Just before midnight, Mohammad Ali Ghoneim, 21, was killed by Israeli forces in another raid in al-Khader town, south of Bethlehem. An Israeli military spokesperson alleged Ghoneim was hurling a Molotov cocktail towards an Israeli vehicle.
Earlier in the day, Ghada Ibrahim al-Aridi, a 47-year-old widowed Palestinian mother of six, was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier in Husan village, west of Bethlehem.
Footage documenting the moment she was shot showed her posing no threat to the soldiers. No weapon was found on her.
Another Palestinian woman, Maha al-Zaatari, 24, was fatally shot near the Ibrahimi Mosque Hebron on Sunday afternoon. Zaatari allegedly tried to stab an Israeli soldier before she was shot.
At least 35 Palestinians have been killed so far this year by Israeli forces in the West Bank.
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