A soldier who claimed he was stabbed by three Arab attackers in Jerusalem has admitted he fabricated the entire story. Earlier this morning, Magen David Adom (MDA) crews treated the soldier and evacuated him to the Hadassah Mount Scopus Hospital after he sustained "stab wounds" which he said were inflicted by three male attackers in Jerusalem's northern neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev. However, under questioning the young recruit admitted that he had sustained the light injuries after falling over, and had made up the story about the attack, apparently to save face. Police had initially worked on the assumption of a nationalistically-motivated attack. But they weren't the only ones duped by the story. In the aftermath of the "attack" this morning, the Hamas terrorist group released a statement praising the "operation". Husam Badran, a Hamas commander in Judea and Samaria, declared that "the stabbing of the soldier this morning is a natural response to the attacks on Al Aqsa", referring to Jewish visits to the Temple Mount. The security situation has escalated since Saturday, when IDF forces entered Jenin in Samaria to arrest the Hamas terrorist Hamza Abu Alheja. Alheja resisted arrest and fired on soldiers, leading them to open fire and kill him. An Arab mob assembled in the meantime, shooting at the soldiers, and in the exchange two more were killed, one of them a terrorist belonging to Islamic Jihad. Statements by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, an offshoot of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement, vowed revenge on Israel for the incident. Later on Saturday, Arab mobs in eastern Jerusalem protested the killing of the terrorist by throwing rocks and molotov cocktails at security forces, who used crowd dispersal techniques to break up the riot. Additionally, an Egged bus was damaged by rocks near the Old City's Dung Gate, leading police to increase their presence. Just the following day (Sunday), Arab terrorists rioted at Rachel's Tomb next to Bethlehem in Judea, lobbing improvised explosives and firebombs. Two border policemen were injured in the attacks.
