Jerusalem: A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli teenager to death in her bedroom in the West Bank early Thursday before he was shot dead, the Israeli army and a Jerusalem hospital said.
The victim was Hallel Yaffa Ariel, 13, according to a spokeswoman for Jerusalem's Shaarei Zedek hospital.
The military said an Israeli civilian security officer who arrived on the scene was stabbed. The assailant was killed, the army said. The security officer was in a serious condition, emergency services spokesman Yonatan Yagodovsky said.
Over the last nine months, Palestinians have carried out dozens of attacks that have killed 33 Israelis and two Americans. About 200 Palestinians have been killed during that time, most identified as attackers by Israel.
The assaults were once near daily occurrences but have become less frequent in recent weeks. In June, however, Palestinian gunmen killed four Israeli civilians in Tel Aviv.
Kiryat Arba is a settlement adjacent to the city of Hebron, which has been a flashpoint of violence in the recent wave of attacks. There, about 850 Israelis live in heavily fortified enclaves amid some 200,000 Palestinians. Jews and Muslims revere Hebron as the burial place of the biblical Abraham.
