An Israeli soldier was killed Wednesday morning by a 16-year-old Palestinian terrorist who stabbed him in the neck on a bus at the central station of Afula, in northern Israel.
Critically wounded, the 18-year-old victim, Eden Atias, was evacuated to the Afula’s Haemek Hospital with multiple stab wounds to the neck and later died of his wounds.
Afula is located some 10 kilometers from the Green Line in the Jezreel Valley.
Passengers on the bus, which was traveling from Nazareth Illit to Tel Aviv, captured the stabber and turned him over to security guards, who in turn delivered him to police.
The Palestinian is a resident of Jenin who did not have a permit to work or reside in Israel, according to police.
At a weekly cabinet meeting, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the relative silence of the "quietest year in over a decade" has been disturbed by the increase of terrorist activities in recent weeks.
On Tuesday, while visiting the IDF Gaza Division to mark one year since Operation Pillar of Defense against Hamas, the Prime Minister said: “We know that Hamas and the other terrorist organizations are trying to develop the underground track, i.e. tunnels, and we are called upon to find a response to all of these threats and, at the same time, continue the strong deterrence that we have achieved and which we are maintaining.”
Last Saturday, a nine-year-old girl was wounded in a suspected terror attack at her home in the West Bank settlement of Psagot.
In September, two IDF soldiers were killed in the West Bank.
Defense officials and analysts have warned in recent weeks that the West Bank may be heading for a popular uprising, citing a rise in the number of rock-throwing and Molotov cocktails attacks.
On Monday, former Shin Bet chief Yuval Diskin said the Palestinians were ripe for a third intifada. However, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said that recent attacks were isolated incidents, insisting that “there is no sign of a popular uprising or so-called third intifada.”