Jewish man mistaken for Arab shot dead after attacking Israeli police on bus

A man boarded a bus in Jerusalem on Yermiyahu street Wednesday and attacked security force officers and attempted to steal a gun from one of the officers, Israel Police reported.

Aside from the attacker who was neutralized, no one was injured in the attack.

Police said that the incident began when two security forces were boarding a bus. A man went off the bus and asked the officers for identification. This raised their suspicions and in turn, they asked to check the man. That was when he began punching the officers and tried to steal one of their weapons. Out of fears that the man was a terrorist, they immediately fired shots at the man, killing him.

According to ZAKA and United Hatzalah emergency services, the assailant was Jewish.

ZAKA chairman Yehuda Meshi Zahav recounted the incident.

"When I arrived with the ZAKA team at the site of the supposed terrorist attack, it seemed to be a 'standard' current terrorist attack, a stabbing attempt, and the terrorist was apprehended," he said.

"I wanted to cover the body in a black bag [reserved for terrorists]. After I was asked to take care of the body I saw that he was a Jew, and that it was mistake to speak of a  terrorist.

"I immediately notified the police and we switched to a white ZAKA body bag," he concluded. 

Altogether on Wednesday, five soldiers and a policeman were wounded in five West Bank attacks on Wednesday, as the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Maj.-Gen.

Yoav Mordechai appealed to Palestinian leaders to calm the situation.

“It is not too late to stop the deterioration [of the security situation],” Mordechai said at press conference to the foreign media.

Mordechai condemned the incitement that is fueling the spate of attacks, saying that the “word is more harmful than the sword.”

Just before midnight Wednesday evening, a attack was reported on Yirmiyahu Street in Jerusalem, just outside the Central Bus Station.

No injuries were reported, and the attacker was shot and seriously wounded.