A British female tourist was killed in a knife attack by a Palestinian man on Jerusalem's light rail at noon Friday, Israeli police said.
The casualty, identified as a 25-year-old student from England, was stabbed by a 57-year-old Palestinian passenger described by the police as a "mentally disturbed man."
A spokesman for the MDA, an Israeli emergency medical service company, said the woman, whose name was not disclosed, received a CPR at the scene before she was rushed to the Sha'arey Tzedek Hospital in Jerusalem.
About an hour later, the hospital announced that she died of her wounds.
According to police spokeswoman Luba Samri, an initial investigation indicated the assailant as a passenger on the light rail. When the rail reached the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) Square stop, near East Jerusalem, he pulled out a knife from a shopping bag and stabbed the British tourist.
The police first said the assailant was shot, but a later statement said an off-duty policeman on the rail witnessed the incident and arrested the stabber without shooting.
The suspect has been taken into custody, Samri said.
According to Samri, the attacker, who holds an Israeli ID, was released from a psychiatric hospital in northern Israel shortly before the incident. He was on his way home in the Palestinian neighborhood of Ras al-Amud in East Jerusalem.
However, a statement released by Israel Security Agency Shin Bet called the suspect a "terrorist," saying he might have carried out the attack in an attempt to get killed by the police.
"He recently tried to commit suicide, in a hospital in northern Israel, by swallowing a razor blade," the statement read.
"In 2011, he was convicted of sexually abusing his daughter," it added.
A man and a pregnant woman, who apparently sustained light injuries when the rail went into an emergency brake, also needed hospital care, the MDA spokesman said.
The rail service in the city was temporarily halted, said a statement by Citipass, the company that operates the rail.
The attack came amid the Jewish holiday of Passover.
The police in the city have been on high alert as tens of thousands of Jews arrive for prayers in the Western Wall inside East Jerusalem's Old City, and some even go to visit the flashpoint al-Aqsa compound, a hilltop site above the Western Wall regarded as sacred by both Muslims and Jews.
It is not the first time that a Palestinian suffering from personal, mental or moral distress has chosen to commit a terrorist attack in order to escape their problems, according to Shin Bet.
The incident also came amid a spate of violence that broke out in September 2015.
Since the beginning of the unrest, Palestinians have killed 41 Israelis and two U.S. nationals, while Israeli forces and civilians killed at least 241 Palestinians, a Jordanian and two African asylum seekers, most of them alleged attackers, according to Israel.
Israel accuses the Palestinian National Authority of "inciting" the unrest. The Palestinians say it is the result of 50 years of Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, home to more than 5 million Palestinians.

Source: Xinhua