A female soldier was killed in a shooting attack at the Shuafat checkpoint in East Jerusalem on Saturday night.
A guard was also seriously hurt in the attack. The two were rushed to a hospital in Jerusalem for medical treatment after the attack, according to police and medics.
The soldier’s death was declared at the hospital, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.
The military announced her death around five hours after the attack, after her family had been notified. There were no further details about her identity. It wasn’t immediately clear if she had died immediately, or after receiving treatment at the hospital.
The Palestinian gunman apparently arrived on foot and fired at security forces at the checkpoint around 9 p.m. before fleeing into the nearby refugee camp with the help of a car.
Two Border Police officers were lightly injured by shrapnel in the shooting.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack. The brigades are a coalition of armed groups associated with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s ruling Fatah party. The terror group has carried out joint attacks with Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank.
“This is only the beginning in a series of terror attacks in response to the killings of our leaders and the desecration of the holy Al-Aqsa,” the group said in a statement. Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound is the third-holiest shrine in Islam. It sits atop the Temple Mount, the site of the two ancient Jewish temples, the holiest place in Judaism. The site is a frequent flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Police said three suspects had been arrested. The suspects were in their 20s and from the West Bank’s Shuafat and Anata, and Beit Hanina in East Jerusalem.
Three members of the suspected shooter’s family were also arrested in Shuafat, Army Radio reported.
A man suspected of driving the shooter from the scene turned himself in to police.
The driver claimed he was giving the shooter a ride to Modi’in when the attacker got out of the vehicle at the checkpoint and fired at least seven rounds, before his weapon jammed.
Israeli security forces at the scene of a shooting attack at a checkpoint outside the Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, October 8, 2022 (Olivier Fitoussi/Flash90)
Security forces raided the Shuafat refugee camp hours after the attack in search of the shooter and two other suspects. Special forces units and a helicopter took part in the manhunt. Jerusalem District Police Commander Doron Turgeman said the identity of three suspects was known to police.
The Gaza-based Hamas terror group said it “blessed the heroic operation,” calling the shooting “a reaction to the incursions into al-Aqsa and the aggression by the occupation today against Jenin.” Earlier Saturday, two Palestinians were killed during an arrest operation by the IDF in Jenin, a city in the West Bank.
“These operations carry a message that the revolt of our people is in progress and will not subside and that the operations, shootings, and gunfire of our youth in revolt will haunt the occupiers and herds of settlers everywhere in response to their crimes and their incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque,” Hamas said.
Photos from the scene of the shooting showed blood smeared across a swath of paving stones and pavement next to a guard booth, as police closed off the area with red tape and collected evidence.
Public Security Minister Omer Barlev, who arrived on the scene alongside top police officials, said security forces “will lay their hands on the attacker, alive or dead.”
Prime Minister Yair Lapid denounced the “grave” attack and his office said he was being briefed on the shooting.
“The heart is with the wounded and their families. Terror will not defeat us — we are strong, even on this difficult evening,” Lapid said in a statement.
The scene of a shooting attack at a checkpoint outside the Shuafat refugee camp in Jerusalem, October 8, 2022. (Flash90)
Celebratory fireworks were reported in Shuafat after the shooting.
The incident comes as military and police are on heightened alert in Jerusalem and the West Bank over the Jewish holiday season. The Prime Minister’s Office said that over Shabbat, Lapid held a security assessment ahead of the start of the Sukkot festival Sunday evening “with an emphasis on the deployment of forces in Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, as well as elsewhere across the country.”
Tensions were already high due to an ongoing anti-terror campaign in the West Bank that has seen over 100 Palestinians killed and more than 2,000 arrested in nightly raids, during which Israeli troops have regularly been targeted by gunfire. Most of those killed were gunmen or participants in violent clashes, but some were unarmed civilians.
The operation was launched after a series of attacks that killed 19 people between mid-March and the beginning of May.
Read More: Female soldier killed, guard badly hurt in shooting at east Jerusalem checkpoint
