JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli police shot and killed a Palestinian man who attempted to stab officers during a raid in east Jerusalem on Monday, police said.
The officers were conducting a search for illegal weapons in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab, the police said. When officers approached the home, the man, armed with a knife, tried to stab them. They fired on the suspect and he was later pronounced dead, police said. Palestinian media identified the man as Mohammed al-Shaham.
The incident came a day after a Palestinian gunman opened fire at a bus outside Jerusalem’s Old City, wounding eight, among them U.S. citizens.
The U.S. State Department condemned the Jerusalem attack late on Sunday, and said at least five of the victims were American citizens. “We remain in close contact with our Israeli partners and stand firmly with them in the face of this attack,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price.
The Jerusalem violence followed a tense week between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. An Egyptian-brokered cease-fire that was reached last week ended three days of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza that saw at least 49 Palestinians, including 17 children and 14 militants, killed.
A day after the cease-fire halted the worst round of Gaza fighting in more than a year, Israeli troops killed three Palestinian militants and wounded dozens in a shootout that erupted during an arrest raid in the city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
