'Palestinian' Teenager Kills Israeli Soldier on Bus in Afula, Northern Israel

He was stabbed to death.

At the Times of Israel, "Palestinian youth stabs sleeping soldier to death on Afula bus":

An Israeli soldier died after he was stabbed multiple times in the neck Wednesday morning by a Palestinian youth on a bus at the central bus station in Afula.

The soldier, 18-year-old Eden Atias of Nazareth Illit, was evacuated to the city’s Haemek Hospital. Doctors operated on him in an attempt to stabilize his condition but he succumbed to his injuries a few hours later.

His funeral was due to be held Wednesday evening at 23:00pm at the Nazareth Illit military cemetery.

Eyewitnesses said Atias was sleeping in his seat on the bus when he was attacked.

Also at the New York Times, "Attack on Israeli Worsens Tensions With Palestinians":

JERUSALEM — A Palestinian teenager fatally stabbed a 19-year-old Israeli soldier on a bus in northern Israel on Wednesday, according to the police, shocking Israelis who have grown unused to such killings in their cities and further clouding a peace process that was already severely strained by Israeli settlement plans in the West Bank.

Infuriated by news of long-term planning for more settlement housing, the Palestinian leadership is expected to meet on Thursday to discuss the future of the American-backed negotiations, which began this summer and were supposed to continue for nine months.

The latest crisis was set off by reports on Tuesday that Israel’s housing minister, Uri Ariel, had started planning for about 20,000 new settlement homes. But some officials suggested that talk of a possible collapse of the negotiations amounted to posturing, especially after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered Mr. Ariel to “reconsider” his new settlement plans, essentially putting them in suspension.

“If the Palestinians want to create an artificial crisis, that’s unfortunate,” a senior Israeli official said on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the peace talks in public. Dismissing Mr. Ariel’s plans as having no legal standing or practical significance, the Israeli official said the Palestinians were “going through the motions.”

Arik Ben-Shimon, an aide to Mr. Ariel, said on Wednesday that the new settlement planning was “frozen” but not canceled. Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, who offered his resignation two weeks ago, along with his fellow negotiator Muhammad Shtayyeh, in frustration over a lack of progress in the talks and the continuing settlement activity, said Mr. Ariel “needs to revoke the orders,” indicating that the issue was far from resolved.

The president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, confirmed in an interview with Egyptian CBC television this week that the Palestinian negotiating team had resigned, though it was never clear if the resignations had been accepted. Mr. Abbas said he was trying to persuade the negotiators to continue, adding, “If they don’t accept, I will form another team.”

The interview was recorded two days before the Palestinians learned of the latest settlement plans, according to Mr. Erekat.

The stabbing of the soldier on Wednesday also prompted calls for a rethinking on the Israeli side. Right-wing Israeli politicians have demanded a re-examination of Israel’s agreement to release 104 long-serving Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons in four batches as part of a deal to resume peace talks. Two of the four groups have already been released.

In a post on her Facebook page, Tzipi Livni, the minister leading the negotiations for the Israeli government, wrote: “I wrote here earlier and harshly criticized the damage in announcing settlement construction, but I took the post off because the profound political debate about the future of our life here will certainly continue, but not now. Now I would like to pay my respects to the memory of the soldier and express sorrow to the family and to clarify one more thing: violence will not bring political achievements. And we will fight terrorism and extremists decisively and without compromise.”

The stabbing took place when the bus, traveling from Upper Nazareth to Tel Aviv, pulled into a station in the northern town of Afula.

The elusive peace. Sigh.

Seriously, the murder is so shocking because they're so infrequent since Israel put up the wall. And this 19-year-old terrorist didn't even have a legal visa to be in the country. The so-called Palestinians just want the Israelis dead and buried so they can take over all of historic Palestine. Screw 'em.