An Arab man who attempted to stab an Israeli soldier guarding at the entrance of the ancient Jewish city of Kiryat Arba was shot by soldiers on Monday.
The Israel Defense Forces said the attempted murder took place at the Elias Junction. The attacker was lightly injured in the IDF response and was taken to a nearby hospital for medical treatment.
No Israelis were injured in the attack.
Kiryat Arba is the sister-city of neighboring Hebron, a flashpoint city that just this past Shabbat hosted a record-breaking 40,000 Jews.
The visitors arrived to make pilgrimage to the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in honor of the Matriarch Sarah, whose death was remembered in that week’s Torah portion read on Shabbat. In that section of text, the Bible records the purchase of the Tomb of Machpela in Hebron—another name for the site—as a burial plot by Abraham for his wife, a location which subsequently served as a burial place for himself and his descendants Isaac and Jacob, and their wives Rebecca and Leah.
A small portion of Hebron was liberated in 1967, at which point the Jewish state took control of the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs.
However, the city has been used by anti-Israel activists to attempt to portray Israel as an apartheid state, due to the fact that while 97 percent of the city is controlled by the Palestinian Authority, the 3 percent housing the Jewish community is heavily guarded by IDF soldiers, due to numerous previous terrorist attacks on residents, tourists and soldiers.
A Palestinian man was shot dead last month while attempting to stab an Israeli soldier at the holy site.
