A Palestinian man stabbed and wounded twelve people on and outside a bus in Tel Aviv and then fled through nearby streets before being shot and arrested by Israeli security forces.
Four people were reported to be in serious condition. The assailant, a Palestinian man in his early 20s from the West Bank city of Tulkarm who resided illegally in Israel, was taken into custody.
The man boarded a Line 40 bus in Tel Aviv around 7:30 a.m. and first attacked the driver, who resisted. "The terrorist stabbed the bus driver several times but the driver fought back," a police statement said. He then stabbed a number of passengers before they managed to open the doors of the bus and escape.
As the attacker ran off, armed personnel from Israel’s prison service who happened to be in the vicinity chased and shot him. A member of the prison service team told reporters that they were on a routine trip to the courts when they noticed the bus in front of them zigzagging and then coming to a stop at a green traffic light. They realized something was happening, he said, as passengers began disembarking from the bus, screaming.
“First we fired in the air, but he didn’t stop,” the head of the prison security team, who was not identified, said to the Israeli news media, referring to the assailant. “Then we shot him in the legs,” he said, adding that the man did not say anything.
Images from the scene showed the assailant lying face down in the mud, his hands handcuffed behind him, the lower left part of his jeans soaked with blood.
Hamas praises attack
The incident occurred on Maariv bridge where the suspect attacked people both on and outside the bus, police said. Police say they are treating the incident as a terrorist attack.
Izzat Risheq, a senior Hamas official, praised the stabbing attack. Speaking from Qatar, he described it as "a natural response to the crimes of the occupation and terrorism against the Palestinian people".
