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Photo: (MaanImages/File)
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HEBRON (Ma'an) -- A 23-year-old Palestinian was shot dead by an Israeli border policeman near the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron after an alleged attack on an Israeli soldier on Thursday.

An eyewitness told Ma'an that he saw an Israeli soldier shoot at the Palestinian, hitting him in the shoulder.

“Then the Israeli soldier approached him and shot him in the head and dropped a knife near his body,” the eyewitnesses added.

Another eyewitness said he saw the Palestinian running when Israeli soldiers shot him. "The boy fell to the ground before the soldiers took off his clothes and wrapped him in a black sack."

Ma'an could not verify claims that a knife was planted at the scene.

The Palestinian was identified asMahdi Muhammad Ramadan al-Muhtasib.

The Israeli army said that a Palestinian attacked and stabbed a soldier near the Tomb of the Patriarchs when “forces responded and shot the attacker.”

Israeli media reported that after lightly wounding a soldier with a cut to the face, the suspect tried to attack a border policeman who shot and killed him.

Nearby schools were evacuated following the attack as clashes broke out in the area.

Eyewitnesses initially identified the suspect as a teenager but the Palestinian Ministry of Health later reported the man’s age as 23.

He is one of well over ten Palestinians to be killed in the Hebron district this month, five of whom were children.

The majority were shot dead in Hebron city, in most cases after Israeli forces alleged they attempted to carry out stabbing attacks on Israelis.

Forces shot and killed 23-year-old Islam Rafiq Hammad Ibeido on Wednesday after saying he attempted to carry out a stabbing attack near the illegal Israeli settlement of Kiryat Arba.

The day before, Hammam Said, 23, reportedly attempted to stab an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint in Tel Rumeida and was shot dead by Israeli forces.

Eyewitnesses to both cases told Ma’an they saw Israeli soldiers placing knives next to the suspects’ bodies following the alleged attacks.

Several attacks have taken place near the Ibrahimi Mosque this month, known to Jews as the Tomb of the Patriarchs.

Saad Muhammad Youssef al-Atrash, 19, was shot dead near the holy site on Monday after he allegedly attempted to stab a soldier.

While violence increased this month across the occupied Palestinian territory, Hebron has been a flash-point between Palestinian locals and Israeli settlers and military forces, with levels of attacks second only to those in Jerusalem.

Today over 500 settlers -- protected by thousands of Israeli forces -- live in around 80 homes in the heart of Hebron's Old City, many of whom have illegally occupied Palestinian homes and continue to remove the area's inhabitants.

As the Palestinian death toll in Hebron and occupied Palestinian territory rises, international rights group Amnesty International criticized Wednesday "unlawful" killings of Palestinians who did not pose sufficient threat to Israeli forces at the time of their death to make the use of deliberate lethal force permissible.
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by Gili Cohen for Haaretz

A soldier was lightly wounded Thursday morning in Hebron when he was stabbed by a Palestinian assailant.The assailant was shot dead at the site.

Later on Thursday, a Palestinian assailant was shot dead after he attempted to stab an IDF soldier near Beit Hadassah, in the West Bank.

According to initial reports about the earlier incident, a Palestinian approached Israel Defense Forces soldiers during a clash in Hebron, stabbed a soldier in his head and attempted to stab a Border Police soldier who stood beside him. The Border Police soldier shot him and killed him.

The soldier wounded in the attack serves in the Kfir Brigade, and was stationed in the area as part of reinforcement in light of the recent escalation in violence.

Magen David Adom ambulance services said it received a report at 8:08 A.M. that a young man had been wounded in an attack along the route between Kiryat Arba and Hebron, in the West Bank. After being treated at the site, the soldier was taken to Hadassah University Hospital, Ein Karem, suffering from cuts to the head.

This is the eighth attack in Hebron this month, while another six attacks in the area have been thwarted. In addition to the soldier today, a soldier and a man aged 25 were seriously wounded and a soldier was moderately wounded in the series of attacks. Four people were lightly wounded. Fourteen of the 15 assailants were shot dead.