A police officer was lightly wounded Tuesday after a Palestinian man stabbed him with a kitchen knife in the southern city of Ashkelon on Tuesday, police said. The assailant was shot dead.
The report of the incident was received at 04:53am at Magen David Adom's 101 hotline.
Police said the officer, in his 30s, began checking a person who was behaving suspiciously at a construction site on Shanin Street in the city, when "the attacker pulled out a knife and attacked the officer."
The officer "responded quickly, fired and neutralized the suspect, whose death was declared on site."
Superintendent Peretz Amar, commander of the Southern District Police, and Brigadier General Barak Mordechai, commander of the Lachish area - both arrived at the scene of the attack and held a situation assessment.
The scene of the Ashkelon attack
(Video: The Israel Police)
This is the second incident to occur in Ashkelon in the past three days. On Sunday, a mentally ill man who broke out of a psychiatric hospital was shot and killed after he managed to snatch a soldier's weapon at a busy junction near the southern city.
According to the police, the man - a mental patient in his 20s - arrived at the Ashkelon Junction carrying a plastic pistol which he used to threaten one of the soldiers standing there and snatch her rifle. According to eyewitnesses, he reportedly attempted to use the soldier's weapon but was unable to operate it.