AFP, Jerusalem

Israeli troops yesterday shot dead a Palestinian man who attempted to stab soldiers and civilians at a bus stop in the occupied West Bank, the military said.

The army said the attempted stabbing took place near the Gitain Avisar junction in the West Bank. The Palestinian, it said, approached a military post in a car “and got out of the vehicle armed with a knife”. The man “ran towards the bus station where civilians and IDF soldiers were standing. The troops fired towards the assailant and neutralised him”, the army added.

According to the Israeli army’s annual report, 100 attacks were carried out in 2021 against Israelis in the West Bank, up from 60 a year earlier. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded 410 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the first 10 months of 2021, compared to 358 in the whole of 2020.

The latest attack came after Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas made a rare visit Wednesday to Israel for talks with Defence Minister Benny Gantz.