An Israeli army officer was seriously injured in a blast at a West Bank checkpoint north of Jerusalem on Tuesday night.

The incident took place after the soldier observed a suspicious object left along the road near the Palestinian town of Hizme and stepped out of his vehicle to examine it. According to the army’s initial investigation, the object turned out to be four pipe bombs, which detonated near the soldier’s face as he approached. The soldier was rushed to an operating room at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem for treatment.

Five unexploded pipe bombs were also found and disarmed by security forces.

“When I arrived at the scene I saw a young man who was suffering from a head wound,” Dvir Adani, a United Hatzalah volunteer who treated the soldier, told the Times of Israel. “He was fully conscious at the time of evacuation. We did not find any other injured persons during the incident.”

Two elderly Israeli women were stabbed and moderately wounded in a terror attack in southern Jerusalem earlier on Tuesday. Authorities are still searching for the assailants, who fled towards the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber.

The attacks come as Israel began its commemoration of Memorial Day Tuesday night in honor of the 23,447 soldiers and victims of terrorism who have died since the state’s founding. Over the past year, 68 soldiers and police officers fell in the line of duty, while 32 civilians died in terrorist attacks.

[Photo: Hadas Parush/Flash90]