Sgt. Yosef Cohen

December 13, 2018: Sgt. Yosef Cohen, 20, was shot and killed by a Palestinian gunman in a shooting attack close to the illegal colony of Ofra, near Ramallah, in central West Bank.

He and another Israeli soldier were killed, and two Israeli settlers were wounded in the attack.

The shooting took place at the hitchhiking section of Givat Assag, in the Benyamin Regional Council of Settlements, between Beit El and Ofra, illegal colonies.

Israeli sources said Magen David Adom national emergency medics rushed to the scene, and provided treatment to the two wounded soldiers.

One of the soldiers, who suffered a severe gunshot wound to the head, was rushed to Hadassah Ein Karem hospital, and a woman was taken to Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center, in occupied Jerusalem, suffering serious wounds.

The army said, according to its initial investigation, the shooter got out of a vehicle, before approaching the hitchhiking station, and opened fire at the people waiting there, then ran back to the car, where another man was behind the wheel, and both managed to escape unharmed.

The two wounded settlers are in their twenties.

Following the incident, dozens of colonialist Israeli settlers invaded the eastern area of ‘Asira al-Qibliya village, south of Nablus, before the Palestinians intercepted them, leading to confrontations.

The Israeli army also closed the Qalqilia-Nablus road, and installed dozens of roadblocks around Nablus, before stopping and searching hundreds of cars, and imposed a tight siege on Ramallah governorate.

In addition, the soldiers closed Huwwara military roadblock, south of Nablus, and prevented the Palestinians from crossing, while groups of colonialist settlers hurled stones at many Palestinian cars.

It is worth mentioning that, at 1 am on Thursday, a squadron of soldiers and police officers invaded Nablus, surrounded the house where a Palestinian suspected of killing two Israeli settlers a month earlier, was believed to be hiding, and shot and killed the man, who was identified as Ashraf Waleed Suleiman Na’alwa, 23.

On Thursday at dawn, the soldiers killed a Palestinian, identified as Majd Mteir, 26, in the al-Waad Street, in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, after he reportedly stabbed and injured two Israeli police officers.

On Wednesday evening, undercover Israeli soldiers assassinated a Palestinian Taxi driver, identified as Saleh Omar Saleh Barghouthi, 29, near Surda village, north of the central West Bank city of Ramallah; the army claimed the Palestinian was allegedly “involved” in the shooting targeting colonialist settlers, the previous Sunday.

Yosef was originally from Beit Shemesh. Source: IMEMC

Sgt. Yovel Mor Yosef

December 13, 2018: Sgt. Yovel Mor Yosef, 20, was shot and killed by a Palestinian gunman in a shooting attack close to the illegal colony of Ofra, near Ramallah, in central West Bank.

He and another Israeli soldier were killed, and two Israeli settlers were wounded in the attack.

The shooting took place at the hitchhiking section of Givat Assag, in the Benyamin Regional Council of Settlements, between Beit El and Ofra, illegal colonies.

Israeli sources said Magen David Adom national emergency medics rushed to the scene, and provided treatment to the two wounded soldiers.

One of the soldiers, who suffered a severe gunshot wound to the head, was rushed to Hadassah Ein Karem hospital, and a woman was taken to Shaarei Tzedek Medical Center, in occupied Jerusalem, suffering serious wounds.

The army said, according to its initial investigation, the shooter got out of a vehicle, before approaching the hitchhiking station, and opened fire at the people waiting there, then ran back to the car, where another man was behind the wheel, and both managed to escape unharmed.

Yovel served in the Netzah Yehuda Battalion in the Kfir Brigade.

The two wounded settlers are in their twenties.

Following the incident, dozens of colonialist Israeli settlers invaded the eastern area of ‘Asira al-Qibliya village, south of Nablus, before the Palestinians intercepted them, leading to confrontations.

The Israeli army also closed the Qalqilia-Nablus road, and installed dozens of roadblocks around Nablus, before stopping and searching hundreds of cars, and imposed a tight siege on Ramallah governorate.

In addition, the soldiers closed Huwwara military roadblock, south of Nablus, and prevented the Palestinians from crossing, while groups of colonialist settlers hurled stones at many Palestinian cars.

It is worth mentioning that, at 1 am on Thursday, a squadron of soldiers and police officers invaded Nablus, surrounded the house where a Palestinian suspected of killing two Israeli settlers a month earlier, was believed to be hiding, and shot and killed the man, who was identified as Ashraf Waleed Suleiman Na’alwa, 23.

On Thursday at dawn, the soldiers killed a Palestinian, identified as Majd Mteir, 26, in the al-Waad Street, in the Old City of occupied Jerusalem, after he reportedly stabbed and injured two Israeli police officers.

On Wednesday evening, undercover Israeli soldiers assassinated a Palestinian Taxi driver, identified as Saleh Omar Saleh Barghouthi, 29, near Surda village, north of the central West Bank city of Ramallah; the army claimed the Palestinian was allegedly “involved” in the shooting targeting colonialist settlers, the previous Sunday.

Yovel was originally from Ashkelon. Source: IMEMC

Lt. Col. M

November 11, 2018: Lt. Col. M. was killed while invading the Gaza Strip as an undercover Israeli soldier  along with other soldiers dressed as Palestinian civilians to assassinate two Palestinian resistance fighters. When the undercover operation was exposed, the Israeli army then initiated a series of air strikes, firing missiles and shells to secure the retreat of its undercover soldiers, killing a total of seven Palestinians on the same day.

Resistance fighters exchanged fire with the invading soldiers, killing one of them, Israeli sources have confirmed.

The undercover soldiers were driving a Volkswagen car, and drove towards the home of Noureddin Baraka, in Bani Suheila area in Khan Younis, before stopping near the property, the al-Quds News Agency has confirmed.

Palestinian resistance fighters then noticed the car and began following it, catching up to it near a kindergarten in Abasan al-Kabeera town, and asking the passengers to step out of the vehicle and show their ID cards.

The News Agency added that the undercover soldiers, who were in the backseat of the car, then opened fire at the fighters, after realizing their cover-up had been exposed.

Al-Quds also stated that some of the undercover soldiers were wearing veils, pretending to be women. The following day after this report, the Israeli airforce bombed the News Agency, completely destroying its office building.

A senior Palestinian resistance fighter, Noureddin Baraka, was instantly killed in the initial shooting, while other fighters called for help, before chasing the car that carried the undercover forces.

The Israeli army, stationed across the perimeter fence, started firing shells at cars and Palestinians who chased the undercover officers’ vehicle, before it crashed against a wall, and then headed toward the perimeter fence.

So far, the Israeli soldier who was killed in the Gaza invasion, has only been identified as Lt. Col. M. The army is still keeping other information classified, but say his family has officially been notified.

The Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas party, said the undercover soldiers who infiltrated into an area, east of the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, assassinated one of its senior leaders, identified as Noureddin Mohammad Salama Baraka, 37.

The army also fired several shells into lands, east of Khuza’a town, east of Khan Younis, in addition to firing many flares.

In a statement, Al-Qassam said that the “resistance in Gaza will continue to defend the Palestinian people,” and vowed that “the enemy will pay a heavy price for its crime.”

Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum said in a written statement that “what the resistance is doing in Gaza is honorable and brave, proving its readiness to perform its national duties, and to defend the people.”

He also said that “the cowardice enemy will pay a heavy price for its crime.”

Israeli sources have confirmed that one of its “Special Forces” officers was killed in an exchange of fire, which broke out during the offensive, and that another officer was injured.”

The Palestinians who were killed in the Israeli offensive have been identified as:

  1. Noureddin Mohammad Salama Baraka, 37.
  2. Mohammad Majed Mousa al-Qarra, 23.
  3. Khaled Mohammad Ali Qweider, 29.
  4. Mustafa Hasan Mohammad Abu Odah, 21.
  5. Mahmoud Atallah Misbih, 25.
  6. Ala’eddin Fawzi Mohammad Fseifis, 24.
  7. Omar Naji Musallam Abu Khater, 21.

It is worth mentioning that al-Qarra just got married a few days ago. Both Baraka and al-Qarra are senior leaders of the al-Qassam Brigades.

Following this serious Israeli military escalation, the Israeli army asked the Israeli colonialist settlers living close to the border with Gaza to remain indoors, and closed the Zikim road.

Israeli media source said that, after the army assassinated the fighters, Al-Qassam fired at least ten shells into Israel area, and added that the Iron Done system “intercepted two of them.”

Furthermore, the army issued a statement confirming that no soldiers were abducted during the offensive into Gaza, and declared high alert along the border area.

Lt. Col. M. was a Druze, Arabic-speaking soldier from northern Israel. Source: IMEMC

Ziv Hagbi

October 7, 2018: Ziv Hagbi, 35, an Israeli settler living in contravention of international law in the West Bank, was shot and killed by a Palestinian assailant in the Industrial Area of Barkan colony, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli sources confirmed that two Israelis were killed in the shooting. In addition to Ziv, Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, 28, was also killed.

The sources added that the Israeli Shabak and the army launched a massive manhunt to find the shooter, identified as Ashraf Waleed Suleiman Na’alwa, 23, from Shweika village, near Tulkarem, in the northern West Bank.

The army invaded Shweika and stormed Ashraf’s family home, before violently searching it, interrogating the family, and taking measurements of their property in preparation for demolishing it as an act of collective punishment.

In the pre-dawn hours the following morning, with Ashraf still at-large, dozens of Israeli soldiers attacked his family home and abducted his mother and two sisters.

“According to Palestinian sources, neither the brother, arrested Sunday, nor the sister have any information related to the attack, but the arrests serve to pressure the assailant to reveal himself,” the Israeli paper Haaretz reported.

Meanwhile hundreds of Palestinians were prevented from entering the Barkan Industrial Zone, the site of Sunday’s shooting attack, located near Ariel settlement, as they arrived for work on Monday.

The soldiers conducted extensive searches of many homes and lands in the area, and abducted a number of Palestinians for questioning in relation to the shooting.

Israeli sources reported that the search to locate and arrest Ashraf was carried out with the assistance and full cooperation of the Palestinian Security Forces.

It quoted an unnamed Palestinian security official telling its reporter that the Israeli army believed that the shooter will likely surrender to the Palestinian security forces rather than the military, to avoid being shot dead by the Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli army, police and security forces, and Israeli political leaders stated that the fatal shooting attack “carried nationalistic motives”. Despite the fact that the Palestinian was recently fired from the factory where he carried out the deadly shooting, they “ruled out [the idea that] the shooting was motivated by this fact.”

Initially, the Israeli army and security establishment said the shooting attack was criminally motivated, but later changed their statement to say that the motivation was political.

Israeli Ynet News said the suspect worked at the Industrial Area for seven months, and carried a permit which was set to expire the following month. The area where the factory is located is in Area C of the West Bank, under full Israeli control.

He reportedly entered the factory carrying a M-16 assault rifle, before shooting and seriously wounding a man and a man, who later succumbed to their wounds, in addition to moderately wounding another woman, 54 years old.

The army said the shooter apparently carried the attack out on his own, as he is not a member of any armed Palestinian group.

Ziv was from Rishon LeZion settlement, a Jewish-only settlement constructed on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank. Source: IMEMC

Kim Levengrond Yehezkel

October 7, 2018: Kim Levengrond Yehezkel, 28, an Israeli settler living in contravention of international law in the West Bank, was shot and killed by a Palestinian assailant in the Industrial Area of Barkan colony, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

Israeli sources confirmed that two Israelis were killed in the shooting. In addition to Kim,  Ziv Hagbi, 35, from Rishon LeZion was also killed.

The sources added that the Israeli Shabak and the army launched a massive manhunt to find the shooter, identified as Ashraf Waleed Suleiman Na’alwa, 23, from Shweika village, near Tulkarem, in the northern West Bank.

The army invaded Shweika and stormed Ashraf’s family home, before violently searching it, interrogating the family, and taking measurements of their property in preparation for demolishing it as an act of collective punishment.

In the pre-dawn hours the following morning, without having found Ashraf, dozens of Israeli soldiers attacked his family home and abducted his mother and two sisters.

“According to Palestinian sources, neither the brother, arrested Sunday, nor the sister have any information related to the attack, but the arrests serve to pressure the assailant to reveal himself,” the Israeli paper Haaretz reported.

Meanwhile hundreds of Palestinians were prevented from entering the Barkan Industrial Zone, the site of Sunday’s shooting attack, located near Ariel settlement, as they arrived for work on Monday.

The soldiers conducted extensive searches of many homes and lands in the area, and abducted a number of Palestinians for questioning in relation to the shooting.

Israeli sources reported that the search to locate and arrest Ashraf was carried out with the assistance and full cooperation of the Palestinian Security Forces.

It quoted an unnamed Palestinian security official telling its reporter that the Israeli army believed that the shooter will likely surrender to the Palestinian security forces rather than the military, to avoid being shot dead by the Israeli soldiers.

The Israeli army, police and security forces, and Israeli political leaders stated that the fatal shooting attack “carried nationalistic motives”. Despite the fact that the Palestinian was recently fired from the factory where he carried out the deadly shooting, they “ruled out [the idea that] the shooting was motivated by this fact.”

Initially, the Israeli army and security establishment said the shooting attack was criminally motivated, but later changed their statement to say that the motivation was political.

Israeli Ynet News said the suspect worked at the Industrial Area for seven months, and carried a permit which was set to expire the following month. The area where the factory is located is in Area C of the West Bank, under full Israeli control.

He reportedly entered the factory carrying a M-16 assault rifle, before shooting and seriously wounding a man and a man, who later succumbed to their wounds, in addition to moderately wounding another woman, 54 years old.

The army said the shooter apparently carried the attack out on his own, as he is not a member of any armed Palestinian group.

Kim was from Rosh HaAyin settlement, a Jewish-only settlement constructed on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank. Source: IMEMC

Ari Fuld

September 16, 2018: Ari Fuld, 40, died of wounds sustained earlier the same day when he was stabbed at the entrance of a mall near Gush Etzion colony, in the southern part of the occupied West Bank.

Ari died from serious wounds to his upper body at Shaare Zedek Medical Center, in occupied Jerusalem.

He was a paramilitary militia member from Efrat illegal colony, near Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank. He had traveled to Israel from the U.S. in order to join the paramilitary colony several years prior.

The Palestinian,who reportedly stabbed and wounded the settler has been identified as Khalil Jabarin, 17, from Yatta town, south of Hebron. The Israeli National News, Arutz Sheva, said the wounded settler shot the Palestinian, who was also shot by a security guard and another settler.

Israeli daily Haaretz said that, according to a source close to Jabarin’s family, the teen told his parents about his intention to carry out an attack in the Ibrahimi Mosque area in Hebron city.

Haaretz added that the “family informed the security forces, but they were unable to find him in that area.”

Israeli Ynet News quoted Dr. Alon Schwartz, the head of Shaare Zedek Trauma Units, stating that the man “arrived at the hospital with a stab wound in his chest on the right side of his back, without a pulse.”The right-wing Israeli National News Agency quoted Lior Shurka, a friend of Ari, telling Tazpit Press Serve, an international Israeli news agency, that Ari “was active in explaining and defending Israel’s name,” adding that he was close to launching a Hasbara website in English, “defending Israel’s reputation.”

Shurka added that resuscitation efforts were carried out for fifty minutes, but the man died from his severe wounds, and his family was informed.

On Saturday, September 15, 2018, a Palestinian child, Soheib Abdul-Salam Abu Kashef, 16, died from serious wounds he suffered of August 3rd after Israeli soldiers shot him in Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

On the day of his serious injury, the Health Ministry said the soldiers engaged in the excessive use of force against the nonviolent “Great Return March” in Gaza, on its nineteenth consecutive week, killing a young man, identified as Ahmad Yahia Atallah Yaghi, 25, and wounding 220 Palestinians, including 90 who were shot with live fire.

On Friday, September 14, 2018, the Israeli army killed three civilians, including a child, and Injured 148, Including 19 children, five women and five paramedics, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) has reported.

On the morning after the stabbing took place, dozens of Israeli soldiers invaded the home of Khalil Yousef al-Jabarin, the Palestinian who allegedly carried out the stabbing, and took measurements of the property in preparation for demolishing it, Maan News Agency has reported.

Maan stated that the soldiers surrounded and invaded Yatta town, south of Hebron, before storming the family home of the seventeen year old, and ransacking the property, causing excessive damage.

The soldiers, from the Combat Engineering Corps, took measurements of the property to prepare for demolishing it, as part of Israel’s illegal collective punishment policies targeting families of Palestinians who carried out, or are accused of carrying out attacks, against Israelis.

Ari was from Efrat settlement, located on illegally-seized Palestinian land near Bethlehem, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Source: IMEMC

Yotam Ovadia

July 27, 2018: Yotam Ovadia, 31, succumbed to stab wounds sustained when a Palestinian teenager climbed the fence into the settlement colony of ‘Adam’ and stabbed Yotam and two others.

Yotam was the father of two young children, age 2 and 7 months, and worked as a technician with “Brinks Security Company”.

The Palestinian assailant, identified as Mohammad Tareq dar Yousef, 17, allegedly managed to climb over the fence into the illegal Israeli settlement of “Adam”, which had been built on stolen Palestinian land which was taken from his village, Kobar, near Ramallah. He then stabbed three people before he was shot and killed.

Another unnamed Israeli settler, age 50, ended up in critical condition with stab wounds to the upper body, according to Israeli media sources.

Before going to the settlement to carry out the attack, the young Palestinian wrote on his Facebook page, “After all of the injustice the Palestinians continue to face: the killing, the diaspora, the theft of land by force, this injustice still prevails, and many Palestinians are silent – including those who have weapons, and are watching the massacres. Those are the traitors.”

He goes on to say, “You [Palestinians] who own a weapon, remember this is for your enemy, not for use against your own people. Remember the children of Gaza, suffering and dying.” The statement ends, “A salute to the people who defend their land and their honor. And to those who sold their land and betrayed their country, those cowards, you must be ashamed of yourselves. The people of Gaza and Jerusalem are resisting, and you are trying to silence them.”

Dozens of soldiers in armored vehicles surrounded and invaded Kobar, near Ramallah, in the hours following this incident. Protests broke out in the village, and some teens threw stones at the invading soldiers.

The troops invaded Mohammad’s home, surrounding it and demanding that the family leave.

Over the one hundred days that preceded this attack, Palestinians in Gaza engaged in largely non-violent protests on a weekly basis in Gaza as part of the ‘Great March of Return’, calling for a return of the Palestinian refugees to their homes in what is now Israel, and an end to the siege on Gaza that has strangled the economy of the tiny coastal strip since 2007.

Israeli forces killed nearly 150 Palestinian demonstrators during this time, and wounded more than 17,000, many with live ammunition. One Israeli was killed in this time period, in May, by a stone slab that fell on him from a building in a Palestinian town he was invading in the West Bank. The Palestinian resistance in Gaza mainly held its fire in solidarity with the non-violent demonstrators, but the Friday before this stabbing took place, a firefight broke out and an Israeli soldier and four Palestinian fighters were killed.

Yotam was from the settlement of Adam, located in the West Bank. Source: IMEMC

Aviv Levi

Aviv LevyJuly 20, 2018: Aviv Levi, 20, a Staff Sergeant with the Israeli Army, was killed by sniper fire from Gaza. He was the first soldier to be killed by Palestinian fire since Israel’s offensive and major deadly assault in Gaza in 2014.

It is believed that the Levi was shot with a “Steyr HS .50” long range sniper rifle, since the bullet penetrated his military vest and killed him.

Senior Israeli Military officials said that they do not believe Hamas was behind the death of Aviv, who was shot with sniper fire from Gaza, and added that the person who shot the soldier acted without Hamas’s approval.

Israel believes that Hamas did not approve the shooting of the soldier, and had no knowledge of the attack, especially since senior political leaders of the movement, including its Political Bureau Chief Ismael Haniyya, were present in the protest areas.

It said that senior political leaders of the movement would not put themselves at such risk by being exposed near the firing zone if they had any knowledge about the use of live fire by the Palestinians.

They believe that the attack was carried out by a party that is not loyal to Hamas, and does not follow its directives.

It is worth mentioning that Israeli soldiers killed, on the same day, four Palestinians and injured 120 others, including 50 who were rushed to hospitals in the coastal region.

The army also dropped dozens of missiles into Palestinian areas in several parts of the coastal region, before an indirect ceasefire understanding was reached.

On Thursday, July 19, 2018, an Israeli army drone dropped a missile at Palestinians, east of Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, killing one, identified as Abdul-Karim Radwan, 22, and wounding three others.

The bombing came just hours after Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman stated that he was planning to launch a large-scale war in Gaza similar to the one in 2014, in which 2200 people were killed. In his statement, he said the ‘Palestinian people will pay the price’ for the continued non-violent protests at the border, which have been going on for 100 days.

Fawzi Barhoum, the spokesperson of Hamas in Gaza, said that Israel has chosen the path of war and offensive on Gaza and its people, by murdering unarmed protesters, and added that these killings have raised the bar of retaliation.

“Israel will be held accountable for its crimes; our resistance has the moral and legal duties to protect its people, despite the dire consequences of its retaliation,” Barhoum said, “Shelling will be met my shelling – the resistance is ready, and capable of retaliation and of fighting for the liberation of its people, for breaking the siege and continuing the struggle for independence.”

In announcing the death of the soldier, the Israeli military issued a statement that, “Hamas will be held accountable for this incident as well as the series of the terror activities it has been executing over the past months. Hamas has chosen to escalate the security situation and will bear the responsibility for its actions.”

The reference to ‘terror activities’ appears to be a reference to the three months of non-violent protests that Palestinians have engaged in at the Gaza-Israel border fence. According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, in the period between March 30th and July 17th, 2018, Israeli forces killed 142 Palestinian non-violent demonstrators, and wounded 16,496.

7901 of the wounded were treated in field trauma stabilization units, while 8695 of the wounded were transferred to several hospitals. 17 of the slain Palestinians are children. 68 of the wounded had limbs amputated. Israeli army fire also caused damage to 58 Palestinian ambulances in several parts of the Gaza Strip.

During this period, Palestinian demonstrators have gathered each Friday at the border fence between Gaza and Israel for the ‘Great March of Return’, in which they are demanding a lifting of the decade of sanctions against Gaza, the opening of the border, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees to homes they were forcibly removed from in 1948 during the creation of the state of Israel.

Since the March of Return protests began on March 30th, the Israeli army killed 146 Palestinian protesters, including 17 children, two medics and two journalists. One Israeli soldier was killed in the same time period, in the West Bank, not Gaza, when a stone slab fell on his head from atop a building.

Aviv was from Petah Tikva, in central Israel. Source: IMEMC

Ronen Lubarsky

May 26, 2018: Ronen Lubarsky, 20, was an Israeli soldier who was severely injured Thursday morning while invading a Palestinian refugee camp, when Palestinians dropped a stone slab on his head from the roof of a third-story building. On Saturday, Ronen died of his wounds.

The incident took place at the al-Am’ari refugee camp near Ramallah, in the central part of the West Bank.

After his death, Israeli authorities quickly mobilized to put together a patriotic funeral that same evening. Hundreds of people attended, including Ronen’s brother, who gave a eulogy in which he said, “Wild animals were waiting for you on the rooftops. I pray to God that our leaders, who I love, will do something about it.” By ‘wild animals’, he was referring to Palestinians.

The funeral was a military service, which took place on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem on Saturday night.

Ronen was a member of the ‘Duvdevan unit’ of the Israeli army, known for its extrajudicial assassinations of Palestinian suspects.

The head of the unit praised Ronen during the service, saying that he had “participated in a great number of operations to capture terrorists”

After the stone slab fell on Ronen Thursday morning, he was rushed to the hospital, where he remained in critical condition until his death on Saturday.

The refugee camp that he was invading, along with other members of his unit, was put under a 24-hour curfew in the days following his injury, with no one allowed to leave or enter. But Israeli soldiers have until now been unable to identify or apprehend the suspects who, they claim, pushed the stone slab off the roof onto Ronen.

Ronen was from Rehovot. Source: IMEMC

Adiel Coleman

Adiel ColemanMarch 18, 2018: Adiel Coleman, 32, was stabbed in the chest in Jerusalem’s Old City and succumbed to his wounds later the same day.

The Palestinian accused of the attack, 28-year-old Abdul-Rahman Bani Fadel, was fatally shot by Israeli police in the immediate aftermath of the stabbing.

Adiel Coleman worked as a security guard in the Old City of Jerusalem, but lived in the Israeli settlement Kochav Hashachar.

He was a father of four children. The Palestinian who was killed at the scene, Abdul-Rahman Fadel, was also a father. He lived with his wife and two children in the West Bank village of Aqraba.

The incident took place on Haggay St., near the entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Initial reports from Israel’s Channel 10 television stated that Turkish identity papers were found on the body of the alleged assailant. But the Israeli military later changed that report, saying that Fadel, a Palestinian from the West Bank, was the attacker in the stabbing.

An Israeli police spokesman confirmed the attack, near the Western Wall, and said the assailant was “neutralized”.

Israeli police blocked all gates leading to the Old City of Jerusalem, along with roads and streets adjacent to the historic walls of Jerusalem, and blocked Qalandia and Jaba’a military checkpoints in the aftermath of the alleged attack, amid high tension and heavy deployment of troops near Jerusalem’s walls and inside the Old City of Jerusalem.

Adiel was from the settlement of Kochav Hashachar settlement, in the central part of the West Bank. Source: IMEMC