Israeli police officers secure the scene of a stabbing attack in Tel Aviv
A Palestinian man stabbed nine people on a bus in central Tel Aviv yesterday, wounding four of them seriously before he was chased down, shot and arrested by Israeli police in an attack praised by the Islamic militant Hamas group.
The assault, described by police as a “terror attack,” was the latest in a spate of attacks in which Palestinians have used knives, acid and vehicles as weapons in recent months, leaving dead and injured. Police identified the assailant as a Palestinian from the West Bank and said he had entered Israel illegally.
The man, who was on the bus himself, travelling with the other passengers, began stabbing people, including the driver, then managed to get out of the bus and started fleeing the scene.
Officers from a prison service who happened to be nearby and saw the bus swerving out of control and a man running away, gave chase, shot the man in the leg, wounding him lightly and subsequently arrested him.
“We believe it was a terror attack,” said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. He said four people were seriously hurt and another nine sustained lighter wounds. The stabber was in custody and the police are questioning him now, he said.
The stabbing follows the type of “lone-wolf” Palestinian attacks that have plagued Israel in recent months, killing about a dozen people, including five people killed with guns and meat cleavers in a bloody assault on a Jerusalem synagogue.
Cheli Shushan said her uncle, Herzl Biton, the bus driver, was stabbed in the upper body and liver and was in surgery. She said he had tried to fight back and sprayed the attacker with pepper spray.
Biton called his friend, Kazis Matzliach, as the attack was unfolding, describing the mayhem. Matzliach said he could hear the sounds of screaming while his friend was talking, asking him if “something happens to me, please take care of my children.”
At the scene, a Jewish head covering lay on the floor of the bus, with blood splattered nearby.
Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the Gaza Strip did not claim responsibility but praised yesterday’s attack as “brave and heroic” in a tweet by Izzat Risheq, a Hamas leader residing in Qatar.
The stabbing is a “natural response to the occupation and its terrorist crimes against our people,” Risheq said.
Israeli officials say the attacks stem from incitement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated those accusations yesterday.
“The terrorist attack in Tel Aviv is the direct result of the poisonous incitement being disseminated by the Palestinian Authority against the Jews and their state,” he said. “This same terrorism is trying to attack us in Paris, Brussels and everywhere.” Ian Deitch, Jerusalem , AP
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