Stabbing Attack in Central Israel

Police said a soldier was "seriously injured" in a stabbing attack in central Israel, while a police official said the assailant was killed.

The attack occurred at a commercial center outside the Beit Kama kibbutz roughly 55 kilometers southwest of Jerusalem, according to a police statement.

Israeli police commissioner Yaakov Shabtai told reporters at the scene that the assailant was a 23-year-old man who grew up in Gaza until he was 18 but had moved to Israel four years ago and "got married here".

Police "immediately arrived at the scene and the initial investigation revealed that a terrorist entered the restaurant on the spot, stabbed a soldier who returned fire at the terrorist and neutralized him," a police statement said.

"As a result of the stabbing, the soldier was seriously injured."

A police official later said that the assailant was killed.

The Magen David Adom emergency service treated the soldier and transported him to a hospital in Beersheba, in southern Israel, the statement said.

The attack comes one day after police said two Israeli security personnel were wounded in a stabbing carried out by a 15-year-old Palestinian boy on a bicycle.

That attack occurred at the Tunnels checkpoint south of Jerusalem, and police later pronounced the assailant dead.

Israel is on edge amid its ongoing war against Hamas militants in Gaza, now in its sixth month.

The war was triggered by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of about 1,160 people, mostly civilians.

Israel's retaliatory campaign to destroy Hamas has killed 31,341 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza.