Policewoman Killed, Three Terrorists Shot Dead in Jerusalem Terror Attack

Hadas Malka, a 23-year-old border policewoman died of her injuries Friday night after being critically wounded in a combined stabbing and shooting attack outside Jerusalem’s Old City. Three terrorists were shot dead in the incident.

According to a police spokesman, two attacks took place around 7:30 p.m as the sabbath descended on the city.  In one attack, two terrorists shot at a police patrol and attempted to stab the officers. The two were shot dead by police. In the second incident, a terrorist stabbed Malka as she and her patrol heard shooting and ran toward the scene of the first attack. Malka suffered critical injuries and was taken to Hadassah Mt. Scopus Hospital where she died of her wounds.

Malka is survived by her parents, two brothers and three sisters.

Several other people were wounded in the incident, one of them a police officer and another a resident of east Jerusalem.  Police said they were checking whether any of the wounded were connected in any way to the attack.

One of the three terrorists was armed with a non-standard Carl Gustav automatic rifle and the others carried knives, police said.

“Two incidents took place within a 100 meters of each other,” Jerusalem police chief Yoram Halevy said at the scene. “In one incident outside the Damascus Gate, a terrorist stabbed an on-duty police woman, injuring her critically. The terrorist was shot by other officers at the scene. In the other incident opposite Tzidkiyahu’s Cave, two terrorists, one armed with an automatic weapon and the other with a knife, attacked officers. The officers shot back and killed the assailants.”

A spokesman for the Israel Security Agency (Shin Bet) named the three dead assailants as Ibrahim  Salah, Adel Ankoush and Osama Atta – all from the village of Deir Abu Mash’al  some 24 kilometers west of Ramallah. The Shin Bet said all three had either been arrested by Israeli security forces in the past or were known to have been involved in terrorist activities.

No group has yet claimed responsibility, however a spokesman for Hamas welcomed the attack, calling it “proof that the Palestinian people will continue to fight the occupation.”

A spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah party condemned what he called, “the crimes of the occupation against three young Palestinians.”

In February 2016, a female border police officer was killed in a similar shooting and stabbing attack in the same location outside the Damascus Gate.