Rescue workers clean the scene following an incident at the entrance to the Jewish settlement of Ariel in the occupied West Bank, February 5, 2018. REUTERS/Yossi Zeliger

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - A Palestinian stabbed and killed an Israeli man on Monday in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials said.

The incident occurred in Ariel, one of the largest Israeli settlements in the territory. An army officer who spotted the assailant hit him with his vehicle, but the attacker escaped and troops launched a search, the military said.

Israeli media said the assailant held Israeli citizenship, but the military and Shin Bet internal security service would not confirm his identity.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli had died of his wounds, making the announcement at a weekly meeting of legislators from his right-wing Likud party.

Tensions have risen in the West Bank since U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel on Dec. 6, breaking with decades of U.S. policy that the city’s status must be decided in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

East Jerusalem was captured by Israel in a 1967 war, and Palestinians want it for the capital of a future state. Israel considers all of Jerusalem its eternal and indivisible capital, a claim that is not recognized internationally. </s> A Palestinian has stabbed an Israeli man to death at a bus stop near a West Bank settlement before fleeing the scene, officials said.

A Palestinian has stabbed an Israeli man to death at a bus stop near a West Bank settlement before fleeing the scene, officials said.

The Israeli military said an army officer chased the assailant after the stabbing at a bus stop near the entrance to Ariel, hitting the attacker with his vehicle, but the culprit managed to get away.

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the Israeli man died as a result of the stabbing wounds shortly thereafter. Israeli media reported that the Palestinian was armed with two knives, and identified the stabbing victim as a father of four. Channel 2 News aired footage from the scene showing the attacker crossing a busy road and then lunging at the man, taking him by surprise.

The Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered his condolences and said security forces are “currently chasing the murderers”. Last month, an Israeli was killed in a drive-by shooting near a settlement outpost in the West Bank.

Palestinians seek the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 war, as part of their future state. Most of the international community views Israeli settlements there as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel said the fate of settlements must be resolved through negotiations. There has been a spike in Palestinian violence since US president Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital on December 6. The move sparked outrage across the Muslim world, where it was seen as the US taking Israel’s side on the most contentious issue of the decades-old conflict.

Palestinian demonstrators have clashed with Israeli troops in the West Bank and along the Gaza-Israeli border, and 19 Palestinians have been killed in the violence since Mr Trump’s announcement. </s> An Israeli man has been stabbed to death outside a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, in what Israeli police say was a terrorist attack.

The victim, Itamar Ben Gal, was attacked at a bus stop near Ariel.

Israeli security forces are searching for the assailant, who they identified as a Palestinian man.

It comes a day after Israel retroactively legalised an unauthorised settlement outpost in response to the killing of a resident last month.

Forces are still searching for the suspected Palestinian gunman who killed Rabbi Raziel Shevach, a father of six, as he drove along a highway near his home at Havat Gilad on 9 January.

Israeli media said Mr Ben Gal was a 29-year-old father of four from the settlement of Har Bracha. He was reportedly a teacher at a yeshiva, or religious school.

CCTV footage of Monday’s attack shows Mr Ben Gal waiting on a roadside. Another man is then seen crossing the road and stabbing him in the chest.

The Israeli military said a soldier had pursued the suspect in his vehicle and hit him after witnessing the incident, but that he managed to escape. </s> An Israeli settler has been stabbed and killed in a knife attack outside an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank.

The attack in the district of Salfit on Monday afternoon, on the main road near the Ariel settlement, was reportedly carried out by a Palestinian man who fled the scene, according to Israeli media.

Israeli security forces chased the man who drove away in a vehicle but later left the car and ran away from an army vehicle chasing him. He was still at large late on Monday.

Israel's Magen David Adom ambulance service said on its Twitter account the settler was a 30-year-old man with a stab wound to his upper body. He later died in a hospital.

Israeli media identified him as Itamar Ben Gal, 29, a rabbi from the illegal settlement of Har Bracha.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to "bring to justice" the Palestinian man.

"I put my trust in the security forces who do the hardest work against these disgraceful attacks," Netanyahu said at the beginning of a Likud party meeting, the Times of Israel reported.

Israeli forces have dispersed to nearby towns in search of the attacker.

Bethlehem-based Maan News agency said settlers in the area began throwing rocks at Palestinian vehicles passing by.

Hamas, in the Gaza Strip, welcomed the stabbing attack.

"It is proof that the al-Quds Intifada continues," its armed wing said in a statement on Twitter, referencing an uprising that came out of 2015 protests commonly referred to by Palestinians as the "Intifada of the knives".

A similar attack to Monday's occurred last month, when a 35-year-old settler, also a rabbi, was shot dead near the illegal Israeli settlement outpost of Havat Gilad. Since then, the Israeli army carried out at least three raids in Palestinian villages near the West Bank city of Nablus.

Accompanied by bulldozers and drones during their incursions, the Israeli army is continuing its search for Ahmad Jarrar, a 22-year-old Palestinian who is wanted for his alleged role in the killing.

His cousin of the same name was killed on January 18 after a 10-hour military operation, in what Palestinians believe was a case of mistaken identity.

Israeli forces declared Jenin, where Jarrar's village is located, a closed military zone and imposed a curfew on several neighbourhoods.

On Sunday, a 19-year-old Palestinian man succumbed to his wounds after being shot during a raid there the night before.

Israeli settlements violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states an occupying power cannot transfer its population into the territory it occupies. </s> Story highlights Three Israelis killed, one injured in stabbing attack in Israeli settlement

Three Palestinians killed, more than 100 injured in Jerusalem clashes

Jerusalem (CNN) Three Israelis were killed Friday in a stabbing attack in a West Bank settlement, Israeli authorities said. The attack followed clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces in Jerusalem's Old City, in which three Palestinians were also killed, according to Palestinian officials.

A Palestinian wielding a knife stabbed and killed three Israelis in Halamish, a settlement located north of Ramallah. A fourth Israeli was wounded in the attack, the Israeli MDA emergency services told CNN.

MDA Director Eli Bin said the attacker was shot and severely wounded, and has also been evacuated to hospital. The Israeli military confirmed in a statement that the assailant had been shot.

In a statement posted on Facebook prior to the attack, the assailant said he was motivated by the Israeli government's recent restrictions on al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, according to an Israeli military spokesman. The attacker climbed a fence and "was able to penetrate one of the houses, which was close to the village perimeter," said the spokesman, who did not want to be named.

Palestinian militant group Hamas praised the attack. "We bless the heroic Halamish operation which came as a result to the Zionist occupation violations and crimes against our people in Jerusalem and al-Aqsa Mosque," the group said on Twitter.

Read More </s> The Israeli prime minister will formally approve the construction of a settlement at the Havat Gilad outpost in the West Bank, following the murder of a local rabbi, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday.

"The government will today regularize the status of Havat Gilad to allow the continuance of normal life there," he said during a weekly cabinet meeting.

The ministers are set to decide on the creation of a "new community" on the site of the outpost with some 50 families living there and provide the settlement with building permits and state money.

However, they failed to catch 22-year-old Ahmed Jarrar, the man suspected of organizing the attack.

The operation continued earlier this week in the village of Burquin, where Israeli troops killed a 19-year-old teenager amid clashes with locals.

READ MORE: Palestine Liberation Organization Calls for Cutting Ties With Israel

During the rabbi's funeral, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett said that the only revenge for the murder was the construction of settlements, while Netanyahu underlined the same policy during his Sunday speech.

"Anyone who thinks that through the abominable murder of a resident of Havat Gilad, a father of six, they would break our spirits… is making a bitter mistake," he said.

Israeli settlements on the West Bank are illegal under international law as Palestinians regard the territory as part of their future state. Israel, for its part, differentiates between the settlements it has approved and not.

The latter are designated as outposts and are usually populated by religious nationalists, who consider the whole territory on the West Bank as part of Israel. </s> The assailant wounded two ultra-Orthodox Jewish men in the street before fleeing into a nearby house where he was caught by border police officers who had given chase. He stabbed one of them before being shot, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

One of the two civilians was stabbed in the upper body and suffered injuries described as moderate. The other man and the border policeman were lightly wounded, Rosenfeld added.

Palestinian web sites identified the assailant as 17-year-old Ahmed Ghazzal, from the city of Nablus in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

The incident took place close to the spot where, three days earlier, border police shot and killed a woman who tried to stab officers at Damascus Gate, a heavily guarded entrance to Jerusalem's Old City.

At least 242 Palestinians have been killed in Israel and the Palestinian Territories in a period of sporadic violence that began in October 2015 but has tapered off in recent months.

Israel says at least 162 were Palestinians who launched stabbing, shooting or ramming attacks using vehicles on Israelis before being killed by Israeli security forces. Others died during clashes and protests.

Two American tourists and 37 Israelis have been killed in such incidents since the violence began.

Israel has accused the Palestinian leadership of inciting the violence. The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank, denies incitement and charges that in many cases, Israel has used excessive force in thwarting attackers armed with rudimentary weapons. </s> JERUSALEM — Six people were killed on Friday in an outbreak of violence that erupted over Israel’s placement of metal detectors at entrances to the sacred Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem and spread to the West Bank.

Three Israelis were killed in what appeared to be a terrorist attack in a West Bank settlement hours after three Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli security forces.

According to the Israeli authorities, a Palestinian entered a home in the Halamish settlement on Friday night, fatally stabbed three civilians — two men and a woman — and wounded another woman, before being shot at the scene. The names of the Israeli victims were not immediately made public.

The three Palestinian protesters were fatally shot in separate clashes in and around Jerusalem. The Palestinian Health Ministry identified them as Muhammad Mahmoud Sharaf, 17, from the mostly Palestinian neighborhood of Ras al-Amud in East Jerusalem; Muhammad Abu Ghanam, from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of At-Tur, which is on the Mount of Olives; and Muhammad Lafi, 18, from Abu Dis, a Palestinian town on the outskirts of the city. </s> A Palestinian opened fire on Israeli guards and Border Police forces outside the entrance to a settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) early Thursday morning, killing three. The gunman was shot, and died of his wounds.

The incident took place outside Har Adar, an Israeli settlement near Jerusalem in the West Bank.

The three Israelis killed include one Border Police officer, named as First Sgt. Solomon Gabariya, and two private guards. A fourth individual is reported wounded.

The Palestinian assailant was named in local media as Nimr Jamal, a 37-year-old father-of-four from Beit Surik, in the occupied West Bank. Israeli media said Jamal had no record of ‘security offenses’.

According to various reports, the Palestinian approached a guard post outside the settlement around 7am, before opening fire with a pistol. The attack occurred at the rear entrance to the settlement where Palestinian labourers with work permits enter.
An Israeli rabbi is stabbed to death by an Israeli Arab outside the Israeli-occupied West Bank settlement of Ariel.