Palestinian teenager stabs, kills Israeli soldier

A Palestinian teenager stabbed an Israeli soldier to death at a bus station in northern Israel on Wednesday, police said, in a rare nationalistic attack far from the usual West Bank flashpoints.

The soldier was stabbed multiple times in the neck and upper body and was evacuated to hospital in critical condition where he died of his wounds, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

The attacker, a 16-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank town of Jenin who was working in Israel illegally, was apprehended and was being investigated, Rosenfeld said. The knife he used to stab the soldier was confiscated.

The stabbing took place on a Tel Aviv-bound bus as it made a stop in the northern Israeli town of Afula.

The attack comes at a sensitive time as Israelis and Palestinians resumed peace talks in late July, after a break of nearly five years. The sides have set an April target date for reaching an agreement.

But an increase in deadly violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank recently is undermining the efforts to make progress in the faltering negotiations. Still, attacks inside Israel itself have been rare.