An IDF soldier has been wounded in a stabbing attack at Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem Monday morning.
According to security sources, a female Arab terrorist arrived on Monday morning to the checkpoint adjacent to Rachel’s Tomb, located south of Jerusalem and adjacent to Bethlehem in Judea, where she stabbed a 25-year-old female IDF soldier who was manning the checkpoint several times in the neck.
After paramedics carried out emergency first aid at the scene, the soldier was evacuated in serious condition for further medical treatment at the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem.
Shortly after being evacuated to the hospital the soldier’s condition stabilized, but continued to be classified as moderate to serious.
Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital Director Prof. Yoram Weiss said, “fortunately it doesn’t seem that a significant wound was inflicted on the structure of the neck; the wounded will remain on artificial respiration and under anesthesia for the coming hours.”
Police and security personnel overpowered the terrorist and arrested her. She has been identified as a 20-year-old Palestinian Arab resident of Judea and Samaria. Soldiers also found two additional knives in a bag she was carrying.
United Hatzalah medic Eitan Brill described the scene: “When I arrived the soldier was fully conscious, suffering from injuries to her upper body. I and other United Hatzalah ambucycle medics treated her prior to her evacuation by an intensive care unit.”
Rachel’s Tomb, where the Jewish Biblical matriarch Rachel is buried, has been a target for terror attacks since the outbreak of the Second Intifada or Oslo War in 2000, and as a result the compound has been heavily fortified.
The IDF told Knesset Members in mid-2013 that about 200 firebombs and 90 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) had been thrown at the compound since November 2012’s Pillar of Defense counter-terror operation in Gaza, indicating an average of almost two bombs a day.
The military said that the nine-meter (almost 30-feet) high walls that have been constructed around the Tomb compound have not sufficed to provide security, with suggestions raised at the time to build a roof to protect the site from attacks from all angles.
Monday’s attack comes in the midst of a recent surge in terrorist activity since the Muslim fast month of Ramadan began two weeks ago on Thursday.
Most recently a 15-year-old Arab terrorist tried to enter central Jerusalem with an improvised Carl Gustav automatic weapon, but was arrested around 2:30 a.m. on Monday at the Shuafat checkpoint.
Also on Monday morning a schoolbus carrying small children from the eastern neighborhood of Ma’ale Hazeitim in Jerusalem to their school in central Jerusalem came under a barrage of rocks, as masked Arab terrorists targeted the bus with potentially lethal projectiles.
