Israeli soldiers hurt, knifeman killed at bus station: police

March 31, 2024 01:20 PM

Israeli police said a man was shot dead Sunday after stabbing an Israeli soldier at bus station in the southern city of Beersheva.

Another soldier was wounded in the attack, police said, and the Israeli army said one of its troops then "neutralised the terrorist".

The Israeli military said an "IDF officer was lightly injured as a result of a stabbing attack" as police said the attacker was killed by gunfire.

Israeli media said the attacker was a young Israeli citizen whose Bedouin clan hails from the Negev desert region of which Beersheva is the largest city.

Police said that "we know his identity and are working to understand the motives".

"He had a long criminal record, and he was supposed to start serving a community service sentence in about two weeks following drug and property crimes," police said.

Medics said they treated a 20-year-old soldier at the scene "with a stab wound to his body" before he was taken to hospital.

There has been a series of deadly knife attacks across Israel and the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza was sparked by the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7.

Some 1,160 people -- mostly civilians -- were killed in the unprecedented Hamas attack in Israel, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel's retaliatory campaign has so far killed at least 32,705 people, mostly women and children, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Sunday.