A knife-wielding 18-year-old Arab from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya was caught and arrested in the vicinity of the President’s Residence in the capital on Friday night.

The incident took place when one of the president’s security guards, who was on a routine security patrol, noticed the young man. The guard called a police officer stationed at the President’s Residence, and the two searched the young man’s body, finding a sharp knife underneath his clothes.

Upon discovery of the knife, he was taken in for questioning by security forces.

Police believe that the Arab’s intention was to carry out a terrorist attack, and that his presence at the President’s Residence was not accidental. However, it is not yet clear exactly where he was heading.

Israeli police officers have been on high alert in recent days, ever since Wednesday morning’s terrorist stabbing attack on a bus in Tel Aviv.

In late December, two Jewish Border Police officers were stabbed and lightly wounded at a police security point near the Lion’s Gate in the Old City of Jerusalem.

In recent months there have been continuing tensions in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, where Arabs have rioted and carried out rock and firebomb attacks, in what has come to be known as the “silent intifada”.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)