The scene of Sunday’s Ashkelon stabbing. Photo: Twitter Screenshot

The beginning of 2016 saw fewer terrorist attacks than the end of last year, continuing a downward trend, Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency announced on Thursday.

There were 169 identified terrorist attacks in January, compared to 246 such attacks in December, Israel Hayom reported on Friday, according to the Shin Bet statistics.  Five people were killed as a result of the attacks and 28 injured, among them 18 civilians and 10 members of the Israeli security forces.

The Shin Bet said the lower trend was most pronounced in the West Bank region — what Israel calls Judea and Samaria — where 126 attacks were reported in January compared to 194 in December.

The Shin Bet split its reports among the area of Judea and Samaria, the area within the Green Line — including Israel’s major cities and most of the country — and the cluster of border communities near the Gaza Strip. All three regions saw fewer terrorist attacks so far this year.

There was just one terrorist attack within Israel’s Green Line in January, the January 1 pub shooting in Tel Aviv, compared to two in December, and three in the Gaza-border region in January compared to seven in December last year.

February, however, was already a worse month than January within the Green Line, with stabbings in the southern cities of Rahat and Ashkelon.

The Shin Bet also noted a dip in the number of individuals in the West Bank arrested on charges of disrupting the public order.