The attack comes as U.S. President Barack Obama is trying to restart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that have been effectively frozen for more than a year. Palestinian press reports said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was on the verge of agreeing to "proximity talks" in which U.S. special envoy George Mitchell would mediate between the two sides.
Ariel Schalit, AP
An Israeli police officer stands next to an overturned military jeep after Wednesday's fatal stabbing at the West Bank checkpoint of Tapuah.
An Israeli police spokesman said that preliminary reports showed that a Palestinian police officer, Mahmoud al-Khatib, reached inside the soldier's jeep and stabbed him near the heart. It was not clear whether the soldier died from the stab wound or from the jeep overturning at the Tapuah junction between Ramallah and Nablus. He was later named by the authorities as Ihab Khatib, a member of Israel's Druze minority and apparently unrelated to his alleged assailant.
An Israeli security officer arrived on the scene and ran over the attacker, slightly injuring him. Al-Khatib was then arrested and given medical treatment.
Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad condemned the attack, which provoked sharp responses from Jewish settlers and their supporters.
"The terror attack at the Tapuach junction is a direct result of [Israel's] gestures toward the Palestinians," the main Jewish settler council said in a statement. "The pathetic attempts to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and to lure him back to the negotiating table with security concessions, and the transfer of authority over security issues to the Palestinians, from whom the murderer emerged, are once again costing us blood."
Israelis are especially angry over the fact that the attacker was a member of the Palestinian police force, which has the mandate under the U.S.-backed roadmap to peace to stop attacks on soldiers and settlers in the West Bank.
Yossi Alpher, a former senior Mossad official and editor of an Israeli-Palestinian Web site bitterlemons.org, said the attack was "bad news, but I hope it won't be used as a reason of taking action against the Palestinian police force, which by and large has done a good job and improved security for everyone in the West Bank."
"These people were supposed to be chosen after careful interviewing to ensure they wouldn't do things like this," Alpher added. Still, he said he doubted that today's attack would have long-term implications for any resumption of peace talks.
