JERUSALEM: 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.

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.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to scrap plans for a “record” 20,000 West Bank settler homes was driven by Israel’s bid to scupper an Iranian nuclear deal, observers said Wednesday. Netanyahu publicly forced Housing Minister Uri Ariel, who had approved the plans, to back down after drawing US condemnation for a settlement project the Palestinians warned would end a fragile peace process.