Israel’s military police have opened an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of a Jewish man shot by security forces near Chords Bridge in Jerusalem on Wednesday night. 

An initial probe revealed that two IDF soldiers grappled with the man, who they suspected was a terrorist. The man attempted to steal the soldiers’ weapons prompting the soldiers to fire and kill him. 

Jerusalem District Police later revealed on Thursday that the man had shouted “I am Islamic State” in Hebrew at the two soldiers. 

An immigrant from Dagestan, the man, 28, had been a student at a yeshiva in the Har Nof neighborhood of Jerusalem. After being released from his service in the army’s Nahal Haredi battalion, he worked as a security guard for a kindergarten. 

There were no other victims in the incident, though one bystander was treated for shock at the scene. 

Eyewitnesses say the man, who it is believed was mentally unstable, confronted two security guards as he alighted from a bus, and then attempted to grab a weapon from one of them before being shot.

A friend of the fatality confirmed there had been something off about him, adding that he was unsure “how fit he was to carry a gun.”

ZAKA chairman Yehuda Meshi Zahav, who was at the scene, said, “I came with a ZAKA team to the scene of the alleged attack, and at first we thought it was a ‘routine’ stabbing attempt and the terrorist was killed. I asked to cover the body in a black bag.” 

“Once I was asked to take care of the body, I saw that it was a mistake and that the body belonged to a Jew and that it was not a terrorist,” Meshi Zahav continued. “I immediately informed the police and we changed the bag from a black back to a white bag.