JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Palestinian woman who stabbed a soldier at a West Bank checkpoint told investigators that she committed the attack because she wanted Israeli security forces to kill her.
The assailant, who was identified by the Shin Bet security service as Asia Kabaneh, 41, from the West Bank town of Duma, approached a female security officer early Monday morning at the Qalandiya checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah and told her she wanted to ask a question. The woman then pulled out a knife and stabbed the soldier in the shoulder, the Shin Bet said.
Other security personnel at the checkpoint disarmed the Palestinian assailant and wrestled her to the ground, according to reports.
The soldier was slightly injured and taken to a Jerusalem hospital for treatment.
The Shin Bet said in a statement issued later Monday that Kabaneh told investigators that she is the mother of nine children and that she and her husband had been experiencing marital trouble. She said she quarreled on Sunday night with her husband over their children’s education and he threatened to divorce her.
Kabaneh said she “decided to commit a terrorist attack so that the security forces would shoot her because – in her words – she was fed up with her life,” according to the statement.
The Palestinian stabber on the Jerusalem light rail who last week killed a British exchange student, Hannah Bladon, told investigators that he chose his victim because she was standing next to a soldier who was carrying a rifle, and he wanted to commit suicide by having the soldier shoot him.
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