Itongadol.- A Palestinian man who pulled out a knife and attempted to stab a soldier at the Gush Etzion junction in the West Bank was shot dead by the army on Thursday.
Soldiers from the Shimshon Battalion, a part of the Kfir Infantry Brigade, opened fire after seeing the attacker lunge forward with a knife.
No soldiers were hurt in the incident.
In light of the continuous spate of Palestinian knife attacks on Israelis in the Gush Etzion junction area, the IDF doubled the number of units securing the area last week.
Military sources told The Jerusalem Post that the move is part of a wider effort by the Judea and Samaria Division and Central Command to protect civilians from knife terrorism plaguing the Gush Etzion junction very frequently in recent weeks.
“We are preparing for this wave of terrorism to become prolonged, and we are preparing for the potential of an escalation,” one of the sources said. “We are adjusting the way we activate forces to deal with knife attacks.”
Col. Roman Gofman, commander of the IDF’s Gush Etzion Brigade, issued instructions to step up patrols around a gas station in the area, and at other spots prone to knife attacks.
Concrete blocks have been set up around bus stops and hitchhiking posts, and cameras, which dot the area, help the IDF investigate past incidents and evaluate the security situation.
The Gush junction is an area where Jews and Palestinians frequently interact, making it a terrorism hot spot in the West Bank.