A 57-year-old Israeli man was stabbed by a Palestinian in the West Bank on Saturday, in an incident whose circumstances were being investigated.
Details on the stabbing were sparse. According to Ynet, the man, a Jewish resident of Ashkelon, entered the Palestinian town of Dahariya near Hebron at the southern tip of the West Bank, to visit a doctor there. He was accompanied by two Arab Israelis, the report said.
The outlet said a 19-year-old assailant stabbed the man in the stomach after discovering he was Jewish, but there was no official confirmation of this.
Ynet said one of the Arab Israelis accompanying the Jewish man hit the assailant in the head with a rod. The assailant was taken to a hospital in Dahariya and remains at large.
Authorities have not yet commented beyond saying the case is being investigated.
Magen David Adom released a statement saying that after the stabbing, one of the men accompanying the victim drove him to the nearby Meitar Crossing, where medics treated him for stab wounds before taking him to Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba.
“We gave him lifesaving treatment, stopped the bleeding, and took him to the hospital in moderate and stable condition,” said one of the paramedics who treated the stab victim.
Dahariya falls under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority in Area A of the West Bank, a territory that Israelis are not legally allowed to enter. Nevertheless, it is commonplace for Arab Israelis to visit the area.
Last August, an Israeli father and son were killed in the Palestinian town of Huwara while visiting a carwash in the Area A village.
Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have risen in the West Bank since the breakout of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza following the October 7 massacre, which saw Hamas terrorists kill about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnap 253.
Since October 7, IDF troops have arrested some 3,400 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,500 affiliated with Hamas. According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 400 West Bank Palestinians have been killed in that time, most of them during violent clashes with Israeli forces.