2 Israeli soldiers stabbed in separate incidents in West Bank

Two Israeli soldiers were stabbed and lightly wounded in two separate incidents occurring throughout the West Bank on Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Spokesperson Unit announced in a statement.

The first attack occurred early noon local time, when an assailant stabbed an Israeli soldier on route 443, a major highway connecting central Israel with the Jerusalem and West Bank area, near a crossing north of Jerusalem.

According to the IDF, "the forces responded, shooting and wounding the assailant, who is currently under arrest." Israeli media reported the assailant was lightly wounded.

An initial investigation by the Israeli military concluded that the Palestinian assailant reached the checkpoint from west of the Beit Horon settlement in order to attack the soldier, the Channel 10 news reported.

Later in the afternoon, another assailant stabbed a border police officer at the Beta junction, south of Huwara, in the area on Nablus in the West Bank.

The officer was also lightly wounded and received medical treatment at the scene. "Forces on the scene responded immediately, shooting and wounding the attacker," the IDF statement said. The condition of the assailant was not made known as of press time.

These incidents occur amid a string of attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians in the West Bank. Last week, three Israeli soldiers were seriously injured when a Palestinian man ran over them in an apparent vehicular attack.

An Israeli civilian earlier this week was stabbed and moderately wounded in an attack by Palestinian perpetrators at a gas station on route 443. The assailants managed to escape the scene.

The tensions in the West Bank between Jews and Palestinians climaxed following the July 31 arson attack by Jewish extremists who threw a firebomb at a home of a Palestinian family in the West Bank village of Duma.

Ali Dawabsha, the 18 month-old baby of the family was killed and his father, Sa'ad, died of his wounds a week after the attack. The mother of the family, Riam, is in critical condition and another 4-year-old is in moderate condition. The perpetrators of the attack have yet to be caught.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, who visited West Bank military posts on Wednesday, said the reality in the West Bank is "complicated".

"We had terror attacks where Jews were killed, in the Binyamin region, in Dolev ... but unfortunately, we also had Jewish terrorism in Duma, a firebombing that now already killed two people and a baby. These things do not contribute to the atmosphere remaining stable," Ya'alon said, the Times of Israel website reported.

Ya'alon ordered the defense establishment, particularly the Shin Bet Security Agency, to crack down on Jewish extremists, allowing in several cases the use of administrative detention against Jewish terror suspects.

The measure is mostly used against Palestinian terror suspects, and enables authorities to detain suspects for security purposes, with the authorization of a judge, without a trial over specified sentenced, for a defined amount of time that can be prolonged, sometimes repeatedly.

Despite these statements of a crackdown, according to the Yesh Din Human rights group, 85 percent of cases in which there were attacks against Palestinians, were closed due to insufficient evidence or failure to capture the culprits. Endit