Israel closes probe of police who shot Palestinian attacker

By TIA GOLDENBERG
Associated Press

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s Justice Ministry says it is closing an investigation into two police officers who shot dead a Palestinian assailant as he lay on the ground. For its decision Thursday, the ministry accepted the officers’ assertion that they acted in self-defense. A Palestinian attacker last week stabbed and wounded an ultra-Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem. He then tried to stab the officers before being shot and falling to the ground. Video footage showed a police officer shooting the attacker when he was already lying on the ground. The shooting prompted calls for an investigation. That incident was part of an uptick in violence between Israelis and Palestinians in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.