Tel Aviv lone wolf 'terror' attack injures 10 people on bus: Israeli officials
Three bus passengers were seriously wounded in what’s being called a 'terror attack' in Israel. Passing prison officers managed to shoot and apprehend the attacker as he tried to escape.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: Wednesday, January 21, 2015, 1:49 AM
Updated: Wednesday, January 21, 2015, 7:27 AM
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JERUSALEM — A Palestinian man stabbed nine people, wounding some of them seriously, on a bus in central Tel Aviv before he was chased down, shot and arrested, Israeli police said Wednesday, describing the assault as a "terror attack." The Islamic militant Hamas group praised the stabbing.
The assault 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 assailant, 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 five sustained lighter wounds. The stabber was in custody and the police are questioning him now, he said.
Witnesses and authorities praised bus driver Herzl Biton for putting up a fight with the attacker that "stunned" him and may have saved passengers, Tel Aviv Police Commander Bentzi Sau told the Mirror.
ODED BALILTY/APA Jewish cap and headphones lie in blood stains on the floor at a bus stop after Wednesday's attack in Tel Aviv.
"The driver slammed on the brakes when (the attacker) got close to us," witness Liel Suissa told the Times of Israel. "The terrorist went flying and I kicked the window and the window broke and so we were able to exit. Also the driver opened the door."
Relatives said Biton, wounded in the chest and liver, attacked the terrorist with pepper spray.
The stabbing is the latest in a type of "lone-wolf" attacks that have plagued Israel in recent months. About a dozen people have been killed in Palestinian attacks, including five people killed with guns and meat cleavers in a bloody assault on a Jerusalem synagogue.
Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls the Gaza Strip did not claim responsibility but praised Wednesday'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.
ODED BALILTY/APPolice secure the scene after Wednesday's incident.
Israeli officials say the attacks stem from incitement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders.
"The attack in Tel Aviv is the direct result of the poisonous incitement spread by the Palestinian authority toward the Jews and their state," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. "The same terror tries to harm us in Paris, Brussels and everywhere."
Most of the violence has occurred in Jerusalem, though there have been other attacks in Tel Aviv and the West Bank.
In Jerusalem, the violence came after months of tensions between Jews and Palestinians in east Jerusalem — the section of the city the Palestinians demand as their future capital. The area experienced unrest and near-daily attacks by Palestinians following a wave of violence last summer, capped by a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas militants in Gaza.
Much of the recent unrest has stemmed from tensions surrounding a key holy site in Jerusalem's Old City. It is the holiest site for Jews, who call it the Temple Mount because of the revered Jewish Temples that stood there in biblical times. Muslims refer to it as the Noble Sanctuary, and it is their third holiest site, after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.
