Jewish Man Dies in Jerusalem Knifing

An ultra-Orthodox Jew on his way to morning prayers was stabbed to death, apparently by a Palestinian militant, in a Jewish enclave in a mainly Arab sector of this city Wednesday, police said.

Tensions in this volatile city, already running high after nearly a year of deadlocked Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, have been exacerbated by recent knifings that police suspect were carried out by militant Muslims.

“It appears that the stabbing was nationalist in motive,” a police spokeswoman said.

Earlier, Jerusalem Police Chief Yair Yitzhaki said the circumstances of the killing suggested that it might have been the work of militants.

“A Jew in Jerusalem is stabbed during an early morning stroll to the synagogue, a quiet place, no one around him--these circumstances raise the possibility of the direction [of a guerrilla attack],” he told Israel Radio.

Israeli media described the victim as a 30-year-old immigrant from France.

Soon after the killing, a Palestinian was slightly wounded in a stabbing in a nearby Jewish neighborhood in the city’s traditionally Arab eastern half.

Police said the second incident was unconnected with the earlier killing.