Palestinian shot after stabbing Israeli soldier

The Palestinian approached the Israeli troops and asked for a glass of water. He then stabbed an Israeli soldier, says the Israeli military. 

The Israeli military says its troops shot a Palestinian man who stabbed an Israeli soldier after asking for a glass of water.

Authorities say Saturday's attack happened at a West Bank border crossing. The name and the age of the Palestinian man was not immediately known.

The military says the Palestinian approached the Israeli troops and asked for a glass of water. The military says when a soldier turned to get the water, the Palestinian man attacked with a knife.

The shooting comes amid growing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians following an arson attack late last month by suspected Jewish extremists that killed a Palestinian toddler and her father.

A Palestinian teenager was fatally shot while protesting the arson attack, which at the time was the fifth fatal shooting by Israeli security forces in recent weeks. 

Israeli officials suspect Jewish settlers were behind the firebombing of a West Bank home, which the Israeli prime minister called an "act of terrorism." According to the UN, there had been at least 120 attacks by Israeli settlers since the beginning of 2015, reports Al Jazeera.

In the first week of August, a Palestinian rammed a car into a group of Israeli soldiers standing alongside a road, wounding two of them. The Jerusalem Post reported that Hamas and Islamic Jihad praised the terrorist attack as a “heroic act” and called on their members in the West Bank to escalate the violence against Israelis.

Hamas spokesman Abad Arahim Shadid said: “We praise this heroic terror attack made against the Zionist.” He added that Hamas considered the attack “an appropriate response to the arrogance of the enemy and its crimes against prisoners, al-Aksa mosque and babies.
“We call upon the members of our people in the West Bank to carry out more terror attacks so that the occupiers will learn a lesson.”