An Israeli Arab resident of Umm al-Fahm was shot and killed in Jerusalem on Friday after trying to stab a police officer.
The attacker, identified as 30-year-old Ahmed Mohammed Hamid, emerged from the Temple Mount compound—home to Islam’s third-holiest shrine: the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Security-camera video from the scene showed a man lunging at a police officer with a knife from behind while the officer was looking at his phone.
The police officer was able to evade the attack and was unhurt. Other officers on his team shot and killed the attacker.
Following the incident, Israeli authorities issued a ban on Muslim worshippers from entering Al-Aqsa mosque. Worshippers were also evacuated from the Temple Mound compound to allow police to comb the area.
The attack comes after a lull in the once frequent lone-wolf attacks in the Israeli capital. The last such one in the area was in March in the Old City, in which a knife-wielding terrorist stabbed Adiel Kolman to death.
Kolman, a father of four who worked as a security guard, was stabbed several times in the upper body. He was in critical condition when he was rushed to hospital, where hours later he died of his wounds.
The attacker was identified as Abdel Rahman Bani Fadel, 28, from the village of Aqraba, about 8 miles southeast of Nablus, who had a legal permit to work in Israel.
