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Fast Forward

‘Fed Up’ Palestinian Woman Stabbed Isreali Soldier In Death Wish

JERUSALEM (JTA) — A Palestinian woman who stabbed a female soldier at a West Bank checkpoint told investigators that she committed the attack because she wanted Israeli security forces to kill her.

The woman, identified by the Shin Bet security service as Asia Kabaneh, 41, from Duma in the Nablus area, approached a female security officer early Monday morning at the Qalandiya checkpoint between Jerusalem and Ramallah and told her she wanted to ask a question. The woman then pulled out a knife and stabbed the soldier in the shoulder.

Other security personnel at the checkpoint disarmed the Palestinian assailant and wrestled her to the ground, according to reports.

The Shin Bet, also known as the Israel Security Agency, said in a statement issued later Monday that the Palestinian woman told investigators that she is the married mother of nine children and that she and her husband had been experiencing marital trouble. She told Shin Bet investigators that she quarreled on Sunday night with her husband over their children’s’ education and that he threatened to divorce her.

She told the Shin Bet investigators that she “decided to commit a terrorist attack so that the security forces would shoot her because – in her words – she was fed up with her life,” according to the statement.

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