Palestinian Teen Stabs, Kills Israeli Soldier

A Palestinian teenager stabbed an Israeli soldier to death at a bus station in northern Israel on Wednesday, police said, in a rare nationalistic attack far from the usual flashpoints in Yehudah and Shomron.

The soldier was stabbed multiple times in the neck and upper body and was evacuated to the hospital in critical condition where he died of his wounds, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

The attacker, a 16-year-old Palestinian from the Jenin who was working in Israel illegally, was apprehended and was being investigated, Rosenfeld said. The knife he used to stab the soldier was confiscated.

The stabbing took place on a Tel Aviv-bound bus as it made a stop in the northern Israeli town of Afula.

The attack comes at a sensitive time as Israelis and Palestinians resumed peace talks in late July, after a nearly five-year break. The Israeli government recently released over a hundred terrorists from jail as a goodwill gesture to the Palestinians. An April target date for reaching an agreement has been set.