Eritrean mistaken for Palestinian shot dead in Israel

A suspected assailant was shot dead while another person was wounded by Israeli forces [Reuters]

An Eritrean man has died after he was shot and beaten by a mob after he was mistaken for an attacker during a raid in southern Israel, Israeli police say.  

The attack on Sunday night at a bus station in the city of Beersheba saw a Palestinian man armed with a gun and a knife kill an Israeli soldier and wound about 10 other people.

The attacker was killed, while a security guard shot the Eritrean bystander

thinking he was a second assailant. Video footage showed that a mob also beat the man, who later died in hospital.

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According to the police, the attacker stabbed a soldier and stole his weapon, opening fire on the crowds at the bus terminal. The soldier died in hospital.

The Israeli IBA network posted footage of the attack, purportedly recorded by a surveillance camera. 

In other video circulated online, a man - said to be the Eritrean - is seen being kicked by several people as he lay bleeding on the ground. (The graphic footage - which could be disturbing to some viewers - can be found here.)

The suspected attacker was named by police as Muhand Alukabi, 21, a resident of Hura in the Negev. 

Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, called the attack a "natural response" and Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian group, said it was a "normal answer to Israeli crimes".

Sunday's attack brings the total number of people killed in the violence that erupted at the beginning of the month to 52: 44 Palestinians and eight Israelis.

The incident comes just a day after five Palestinians were shot dead during alleged stabbing attacks - three of them in Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Palestinians have disputed the police version of events in at least some of the cases.

Triggered by Israeli incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound last month, violence and protests against Israel's occupation have increased in frequency across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

  Aljazeera