UPDATE: This article has been updated to reflect that the officer was hit with friendly fire.
(JTA) — An Israeli border police officer has died after a Palestinian teen stabbed him on a bus, and a security guard hit him with friendly fire, outside the Shuafat refugee camp in eastern Jerusalem on Monday.
The attack took place at a checkpoint outside Shuafat. The 13-year-old attacker stabbed the officer, after which a security guard on the bus shot at the teen, hitting the officer as well. The cause of the officer’s death was unclear as of Monday evening.
Earlier, police arrested a 14-year-old Palestinian after he allegedly stabbed a 17-year-old boy in Jerusalem’s Old City, Haaretz reported.
Israeli-Palestinian violence has intensified in recent weeks, with a number of attacks on Jews in Jerusalem, including two that were deadly. One non-fatal shooting attack near the Old City was carried out by a 13-year old, who was shot when one of the two people he wounded, an off-duty soldier, returned fire.
Kan, Israel’s public broadcaster, quoted police as saying that Palestinian terror groups are using TikTok videos and other social media to encourage young teens in the Jerusalem area to carry out attacks.
On Friday, a Palestinian man rammed his car into a bus stop outside the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot, killing three people, including two brothers, aged 6 and 8. The attacker was killed. Two weeks earlier, a Palestinian attacker shot and killed seven people outside a synagogue in the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Neve Yaakov. On Sunday, Israel’s government gave recognition to nine previously unrecognized settlements in the West Bank in retaliation for the attacks.
The attacks have come amid escalating violence in the region. Israeli troops have been carrying out deadly raids in the West Bank, seeking armed militants who Israeli authorities say are planning terrorist attacks. An Israeli raid in the northern West Bank city of Jenin in late January killed 10 people, including two civilians. Terrorist groups based in the Gaza Strip have fired rockets into Israel, and Israel has responded with air raids.
