Jerusalem violence: Israeli man shoots Palestinian teenage woman who stabbed him in the back

A teenage Palestinian woman has stabbed a Jewish man who subsequently shot her in retaliation. On 7 October, the knife welding woman, 18, attacked the 35-year-old man from behind, near the Lion's Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem, police said.

The armed man suffered only light injuries to his upper body and then opened fire on the assailant. The woman was transported to a hospital in critical condition. The identities of the two people involved were not immediately released. Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, tweeted:

The incident comes as tensions are escalating in the West Bank and East Jerusalem following a series of deadly incidents. On 5 October two Palestinian teenagers were shot dead by Israeli troops in separate incidents in the occupied West Bank. Earlier, Israel banned Palestinians from entering the Old City for the first time since Israel seized the area during the 1967 Six-Day War. The move followed the stabbing of a 15-year-old Israeli by a Palestinian teenager, who was then shot dead by an Israeli officer.

Another deadly stabbing near the Old City's Lion's gate last week was symptomatic of the growing violence in the region. On 3 October, 19-year-old Palestinian law student Muhanad Halabi killed Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, 41, and off-duty soldier Aharon Benita, 21.

Benita's wife Adele, who was wounded at the neck, said onlookers went on to mind their business, or worse spat on her, as she screamed for help, bleeding in the street. "I screamed, I begged for aid," the 22-year-old mother of two told the New York Times from her hospital bed. "They stood chatting and laughing — they spat at me".

Rosenfeld told IBTimes UK that police have opened an investigation. "We are looking into residents in the area who were there at the time of the attack and didn't help her," he said.

The increasing violence has prompted Israeli media to warn that a "Third Intifada" is on the horizon, referring to Palestinian uprisings in the 1980s and early 2000s. Israel's leading newspaper commentator, Nahum Barnea, wrote in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper: "Not calling it by name allows the political and military establishment to evade, repress, shirk responsibility."