Israel: One dead in knife attack in shopping center

One person was killed and another seriously injured in a knife attack at a shopping mall in the northern Israeli city of Karmiel, Israeli officials say.

According to police, the attacker, a resident of the nearby, predominantly Arab town of Nahaf, was shot dead at the scene by one of the victims.

Video footage appeared to show a man repeatedly stabbing two uniformed men armed with rifles, then running away before being shot and falling to the ground.

Police said the incident was a “suspected terrorist attack” and that several relatives of the attacker had been arrested.

There were no immediate claims from any group.

Hamas, on the other hand, described the attack as a “natural reaction” to Israel’s “crimes” in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad spoke of a “heroic operation”.

The Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom said its paramedics treated two men in their twenties with deep wounds in the shopping center.

They performed CPR on a man who was in critical condition before evacuating both to the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya, it said.

The hospital later announced that one of the victims had died and the other was being treated in intensive care.

Since the start of the Gaza war, which was triggered by Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel on October 7, there has been an increase in violence in the West Bank and Israel.

The UN reported on Wednesday that 22 Israelis, including nine security forces, were killed in attacks by Palestinians in Israel and the West Bank on July 1.

During the same period, 539 Palestinians – members of armed groups, attackers and civilians – were killed in the West Bank, the vast majority of them by Israeli forces, it said.