An Israeli soldier was stabbed in a downtown Tel Aviv train station on Monday, police said, adding that they had arrested a Palestinian suspected of perpetrating the act as part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the assailant was from the West Bank city of Nablus and was captured immediately after the stabbing.
“He is presently under interrogation,” Rosenfeld said.
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A spokeswoman at the Tel Aviv hospital where the wounded soldier is being treated described his condition as grave.
Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have been extremely high in recent weeks, following last summer’s war in the Gaza Strip and increasing frictions over a contested Jerusalem holy site.
The fatal shooting of an Israeli Arab by a policeman early Saturday in the Israeli Arab town of Kfar Kana gave new impetus to the tensions, following release of a video that appeared to show the man backing away from police when he was shot.
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The police’s internal investigations department is looking into the shooting to determine whether proper protocol was followed.
Arab citizens make up some 20 per cent of Israel’s population. They enjoy full citizenship but share the ethnicity and culture of the Palestinians in the occupied territories, and have long complained of discrimination. They often identify with Palestinian nationalism, rather than Israeli.