Jerusalem // A Sudanese migrant in Israel was shot dead yesterday after stabbing and wounding a soldier in an apparent act of solidarity with Palestinians, police said.
If that motive is confirmed, it would be the first such attack by a foreigner during a four-month surge of violence.
The stabbing took place in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, where police said Kamal Hassan, 32, may have acted in solidarity with Palestinians.
Police said Hassan slightly wounded a soldier at a bus station before fleeing, and was pursued by another soldier who shot him.
A witness told Israeli public radio that the soldier shot Hassan three times, but he continued to run. He then fired three more times..
Before he died, Hassan “mumbled a few unclear statements in Arabic”, said Ashkelon police chief Shimon Portal.
Israeli security forces have killed 165 Palestinians since the violence erupted in October.
Most of the Palestinians were shot dead after allegedly attempting to carry out individual knife attacks.
Others were killed by Israeli soldiers during clashes and demonstrations. The violence has killed 26 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean.
A large number of illegal immigrants have arrived in Israel from Sudan through Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, although the status of Hassan was not clear.
Thousands of Sudanese have entered Israel illegally through Egypt in recent years, some seeking work and others asylum.
Israel’s efforts to repatriate them have been hampered because it has no ties with Sudan.
Official figures show 45,000 illegal immigrants are in Israel, almost all from Eritrea and Sudan.
In October, an Eritrean migrant worker who was mistaken for an Arab attacker died after he was shot by Israeli security forces and brutally beaten at a bus station in the southern city of Beersheba.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday he would advance legislation enabling the suspension of parliamentarians for “inappropriate conduct” after Arab MPs met relatives of Palestinians killed in the violence.
Mr Netanyahu’s declaration came after three Arab Israeli lawmakers visited relatives of Palestinians executed by Israeli security forces after allegedly attacking Israelis, drawing harsh condemnation from most of the Israeli political establishment.
Basel Ghattas, Jamal Zahalka and Hanin Zoabi of the Balad party attended a meeting initiated by a Palestinian committee seeking to retrieve the bodies of those killed by Israeli security forces.
While the bodies of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank killed are returned within hours or days, Israel currently retains those from east Jerusalem, saying this discourages violence. Palestinian rights groups say this amounts to collective punishment.
Mr Netanyahu also angrily condemned a suspected arson attack against a makeshift synagogue in the West Bank where Jewish Torah scrolls were burned.
The scrolls were stored inside a tent that was used as a synagogue near an illegal settler outpost.
* Reuters, Agence France-Presse and Associated Press
