IDF troops kill alleged Palestinian knifeman who tried to stab soldiers near Hebron

Would-be-stabber is identified as 23-year-old Muhammad Wael al-Sharouf; Palestinian prisoner dies in administrative detention at Israel’s Ofer Prison, in the West Bank

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian man at a junction near Hebron on Sunday, after he allegedly attempted to stab soldiers outside of the West Bank city.

The Israel Defense Forces said that troops had “eliminated a terrorist who attempted to stab them in the area of Hebron.” No soldiers were injured in the attempted stabbing, the army said.

The Palestinian Authority health ministry confirmed that 23-year-old Muhammad Wael al-Sharouf “was shot by forces” north of the city of Hebron.

The incident came less than a day after a 16-year-old Palestinian was shot dead after he allegedly hurled an explosive device at Israeli soldiers who were operating in the northern West Bank village of Silat al-Harithiya on Saturday night.

The teen suspect was identified by the Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA as Mohammad Iyad Abahreh, 16. The agency, citing Palestinian security sources, reported that the IDF seized Abahreh’s body after killing him.

Violence in the West Bank has soared since the Hamas attack on Israel triggered the Gaza war in October 2023.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers since the war started, according to the PA health ministry. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in exchanges of fire, rioters who clashed with troops, or terrorists carrying out attacks.

During the same period, 63 civilians and Israeli security personnel have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another eight members of the security forces were killed in clashes during raids in Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

The same period has also seen a major surge in attacks by settler extremists on Palestinians and their property across the West Bank. The IDF has recorded more than 750 incidents of nationalistic crime and settler violence since the start of the year. The total for 2024 was 675 incidents.

Palestinian dies in administrative detention

Separately on Sunday, the PA’s prisoners’ affairs office said that a Palestinian prisoner had died in administrative detention at Israel’s Ofer Prison in the West Bank.

The agency identified him as Sakher Zaoul, 26, of Hussan, near Bethlehem.

He had been in Israeli administrative detention — meaning he was held without charge — since June 11, the PA agency said.

It cited Zaoul’s family as saying he had no chronic illnesses or prior conditions and that his brother Khalil is also held in an Israeli prison.

Administrative detention is the controversial practice through which Israel is able to hold suspects indefinitely, without charges, arguing that presenting the evidence against them in court is impossible for various reasons, such as harming future intelligence-gathering. The tool is employed against several thousand Palestinians and a number of Arab Israelis; Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered an end to its application against Israeli Jews earlier this year.

Zaoul is the 86th Palestinian prisoner that the PA has identified as having died in an Israeli prison since the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, the PA prisoners’ agency said.

The statement did not specify Zaoul’s cause of death, but accused Israel’s ultranationalist National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of overseeing a policy of abuse that is “slowly executing” Palestinian prisoners.

Ben Gvir, who oversees Israel’s prisons, has repeatedly bragged about reducing the quality of living conditions for Palestinian inmates to the bare legal minimum — although the High Court of Justice ruled in September that prisoners were receiving a quantity of food below the legal minimum.

The PA prisoners’ agency noted that Zaoul died four days after the death in Israeli custody of another Palestinian prisoner, Abdelrahman al-Sabateen.