JERUSALEm: A Jordanian man stabbed and wounded an Israeli officer in annexed east Jerusalem on Saturday before being shot dead, police said.
The officer was taken to hospital with “moderate” injuries after the attack in the walled Old City, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said in a statement.
Police identified the assailant as Mohammad Skaji, a 57-year-old Jordanian who the statement said had “entered Israel a few days ago.”
They said he brandished a knife and stabbed the policeman in one of the alleys of the Old City before the wounded officer, who had just come off duty, shot him dead.
Two Israeli passers-by tried to help the policeman, police added.
The Jordanian government denounced the “crime” of the death of its citizen, giving his full name as Mohammed Abdullah Salim Al-Kassaji.
“The Israeli government, which is the occupying force, bears responsibility for the shooting of a Jordanian citizen in occupied east Jerusalem which led to his martyrdom,” government spokesman Mohamed Momani said in a statement.
“The government denounces this heinous crime… and has asked Israel to provide full details about it,” he added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office responded, condemning what it called “the Jordanian government spokesman’s support for the terrorist attack.”
“The security cameras clearly show a Jordanian tourist stabbing an Israeli officer,” it said in a statement.
“Just as Israel condemns terrorist attacks in Jordan, Jordan should condemn attacks in Israel.”
In 1994, Jordan made peace with Israel. Jordan and Egypt are the only two Arab countries to have peace agreements with the Jewish state.
A wave of unrest that broke out in October 2015 has claimed the lives of 263 Palestinians, 41 Israelis, two Americans, two Jordanians, an Eritrean, a Sudanese and a Briton, according to an AFP count.
Most of the Palestinians killed were carrying out knife, gun or car-ramming attacks, the Israeli authorities say.
Others were shot dead during protests or clashes, while some were killed in Israeli air strikes on the Gaza Strip.
The violence has subsided in recent months.
